Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
pressure is required for solvent actuation. This could also be a concern with GEMBE. However, the differences
between the three techniques diminish if actuation is effected by an electric field. It appears from this
discussion that CE is not immediately about to become the main method of separation. The leap from
academia to national and industrial laboratories is a challenge for analysts and provides fertile ground for
research
3
.
In principle, a completely 'green' world would be free from any human influence on the environment - an
absurd concept. Moreover, a lesson from thermodynamics is that systems that produce more entropy and,
consequently, more environmental pollution, are likelier to survive [66]. This makes protection of the
environment objectively difficult. On the other hand, the prospect of an ecological catastrophe has elevated
concerns that current values must be replaced with radically new ones that are not merely based on the
Darwinian struggle for survival. Aiming for sustainability is arguably a better strategy for human behaviour
and for Green Analytical Chemistry as well. The author of this chapter understands sustainability to be the
ability to survive in a competitive environment with limited resources. Of course, it is strange to contemplate
that analytical chemistry could be the bottleneck to the ultimate survival of the human species. However, the
choice of a green method plays an essential role in every analytical laboratory. The purpose of analytical
chemistry is clear: to produce specific information about the identity and amount of a particular substance.
As a branch of information science, analytical chemistry does not need to consume many resources at all. The
most sustainable analytical chemistry is one in which the required results are obtained less expensively, while
simultaneously complying with the regulations and laws.
There is an unfortunate issue that Green Analytical Chemistry research must confront. Corporate policy
that is only directed towards the self-interested exploitation of the consumer market and environmental
resources is not overly supportive of the green worldview. Companies that produce analytical instrumentation
are no exceptions. A willingness to respond to new discoveries in analytical science with new instruments
must be acknowledged; however, a trend towards lowering the level of service for existing analytical
instruments, or even a reluctance to perform such service, has become noticeable in recent years. Competition
motivates instrument manufacturers to sell more and more new instruments, and providing service is not
profitable. This trend can be widely observed in everyday life. The author's position might be criticized as
naïve with regard to the requirements of economic development, but it is clear that the advancement of Green
Analytical Chemistry will remain an obscure curiosity on the part of academics, and the effects of their
research will have negligible impact, if the attitude of suppliers of analytical instrumentation does not change.
References
1. Schmitt-Kopplin, P. (ed.) (2008)
Capillary Electrophoresis: Methods and Protocols
, Humana Press, Totowa, NJ.
2. Landers, J.P. (ed.) (2008)
Handbook of Capillary and Microchip Electrophoresis and Associated Microtechniques,
3rd edn
,
CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.
3. Hjertén, S. (1967) Free zone electrophoresis,
Chromatogr. Rev.
,
9
, 122-219.
4. Virtanen, R. (1974) Zone electrophoresis in a narrow-bore tube employing potentiometric detection,
Acta Polytech.
Scand. Chem
.,
123
, 1-67.
5. Everaerts, F.M. and Hoving-Keulemans, W.M.L. (1970) Zone electrophoresis in capillary tubes,
Sci. Tools.
,
17
,
25-28.
6.
Jorgenson, J.W. and Lukacs, K.D. (1981) Zone electrophoresis in open-tubular glass capillaries,
Anal. Chem.
,
53
,
1298-1302.
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Ironically, such research need not be green at all: due to the small amount of academic research in separation science as compared to
the rest of the analytical chemical world, even non-green and expensive methods could be used to prove the greenness of CE.
