Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
• Written theoretical text
• Integrate green principles in university text books
Teaching
activities
Theory
Seminars
Exercises
Laboratory experiments
• Evaluate method alternatives
by using green parameters
• Incorporate green pictograms
in method information
• Evaluate reagents and energy consumed
• Evaluate analytical waste generation
• Incorporate to MSDSs as previous information
for laboratories
• Apply green parameter evaluation to the
methods assayed
• Use the green pictograms to quantify the
figures of merit
Figure 2.6
Aspects to be considered for greening Analytical Chemistry teaching practices.
2.5
From the bench to the real world
Nowadays there is a big effort in scientific literature to search for new tools in analytical chemistry which can
provide a reduction of reagents and energy consumed and could avoid or minimize toxic wastes [29,30]
additional to efforts to look for the replacement of toxic reagents by innocuous ones [31]. However, it is time
to cross the line between the academic and the real world and to look for practical applications of the green
developed methods. To do it, the new green tools must be tested in depth to evidence their advantages in terms
of both environmental safety and economy and in this sense it is a priority task to correctly evaluate the green
alternatives in these two ways. Parameters, like the amount of reagents consumed for each determination and
the volume of waste generated by 100 determinations must be included between the figures of merit of the
green approaches and compared with those of previously available methodologies. It seems not enough to
include general sentences indicating that the use of ethanol in liquid chromatography is greener than the use
of acetonitrile or to generalize that flow analysis methods offer a reduction of reagent consumption in front
of in-batch methods. If we could move from our desks and university laboratories to the implementation of
green methods in the industrial world, we must quantify the green alternatives in order to provide solid
arguments for a change of mentality and practices.
On the other hand, it could be of a great interest to make a deep evaluation of the green alternative methods,
looking on the present advantages and drawbacks but also thinking about the future and to do it, the strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) methodology offers a clear picture for the comparison between
two alternative procedures [32].
The SWOT methodology consists of a deep evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of a proposal, a
new procedure or a change of conditions in our case. So, the reader can evaluate from this situation the
opportunities offered by the evaluated proposal and its threats. The aforementioned methodology thus
provides a clear comparison between the alternative suggested and the previous situation, and also a look into
the future.
Someone could think that SWOT methodology is an economic or social tool more than a scientific one but
do not hesitate; if we would convince the industry and laboratory managers to move their old practices, we
must use the same arguments employed in the economic field and Figure 2.7 shows, as an example, the
evaluation of incorporating a photoassisted waste decontamination step on-line in the determination of
