An industrial platinum resistance thermometer is a platinum resistance thermometer built for practical measurement conditions. The label Pt100 specifies a nominal reference electrical resistance, not an SPRT, a calibration certificate, or a universal accuracy. Calibrate the probe together with its readout when the desired result is the performance of the complete indicating system.
A standard platinum resistance thermometer uses very pure, annealed platinum with strain-limiting construction. An industrial platinum resistance thermometer commonly uses supported wire or a film. Their response curves differ.[ref]
The word standard describes the instrument's metrological role. Calibrated SPRTs realize specified interpolation intervals of the International Temperature Scale of 1990 and transfer reference temperatures to other thermometers.[ref] They are primary standards for realizing that practical scale, but their electrical resistance alone does not determine absolute thermodynamic temperature without calibration. Primary thermometry such as the corrected gas thermometer obtains thermodynamic temperature from a physical law. A reference in a comparison bath may be an SPRT; an individually calibrated industrial platinum resistance thermometer can also serve as a working reference with an appropriate uncertainty.