A grade is a label that tells you how pure a chemical is, which standard it follows, or how it was made. Picking the right one keeps your results clean without paying for purity you don't need.
Grades fall into a few families. Standards based grades, like ACS, USP, NF, and FCC, follow a published reference, so any two products with the same label should meet the same limits. Quality tier grades, like lab, reagent, purified, and technical, are set by the supplier, so the assay on the product page matters more than the name. Application grades, like HPLC, LCMS, semiconductor, electronic, and histological, are purified for one specific kind of work. Certifications, like Kosher, Halal, Organic, and RSPO, speak to sourcing and handling rather than purity. Each product page lists its grade, its assay, and its documents, and the lot COA shows what was actually tested.