Chemistry, kinds analytical, 7: developments

However, now and then analytical chemists feel uneasy with such kinds of definitions which do not reflect completely the identity and independence of analytical chemistry. Chemists of other branches (inorganic, organic, and physical chemists) as well as physicists and bioscientists also obtain information on inanimate or living matter using and developing high-performance analytical instruments just as analytical chemists do. 

As might have been expected in a relatively established subdiscipline of chemistry of this kind, there has been a gradual but remorseless accumulation of further information in new systems of increasing complexity. However, most of this additional analytical knowledge in essence amounts to an extension and development of established ideas to cover larger or more functionalized molecules and ions. Under these circumstances, the... 

When the metals were studied, the release of gases and vapors was observed. For example, Paracelsus reported that when iron was dissolved in sulfuric acid air comes out like a wind. The differentiation of these kinds of air took more than two centuries. Research on the analysis of gases was extremely productive in developing the basic methods to handle and study gases and even paved the way to design techniques for elementary analysis of the constituents of organisms. Thus the study of gases became the second epoch of analytical chemistry it is called the pneumatic age. ... 

I argue here that these developments in analytical chemistry established a paradigm for one kind of concept of objectivity. Ralph Muller, who will play a central role in this discussion, wrote in the January 1947 issue of the Analytical Edition of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry (the journal that subsequently became Analytical Chemistry) ... 

Such examples could be multiplied many fold. Think of measures of pesticides, toxins in the water, or even at a greater distance from analytical chemistry, the numbers we use to assess the quality of teaching. The point is that we now have a model for an ideal kind of objective analysis—be it of steel alloy composition, fetal heart condition, food quality, or even professorial competence we should be able to subject the object of analysis to some instrument, the operation of which is relatively simple—ideally, push-button simple—and obtain "the answer." Of course, not everything can accommodate such an ideal, but as an ideal it serves to guide us as we develop and critique methods of analysis. 

I have argued that developments in analytical chemistry during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s—the instrumentation revolution— articulated and promoted an ideal for a kind... 

The other kind of book you will want to read is one on the basics of chemistry. The procedures used by chemists are much the same no matter what their area of expertise and practice. For example, a chemist working to develop new pharmaceutical drugs uses similar analytical methods as a chemist who is trying to create a new artificial sweetener. 

It will be going beyond the scope of the present review to give a detailed description of the techniques available, or to provide a comprehensive list of all methods used in surface analysis. Such information could be found in a number of monographs and review papers414,15. Analytical Chemistry publishes reviews every two years on the latest developments in surface characterization methods16. We will attempt to discuss briefly the most powerful and most readily available methods applicable to routine gold-thiol monolayer analysis with particular emphasis on the kind of information which can be obtained from these systems. 

In the eighties and early nineties a great deal of effort was made to study transition metal complexes in chloroaluminate ionic liquids (see Section 6.1 for some examples). The investigations at this time generally started with electrochemical studies [64] but included also spectroscopic and complex chemistry experiments [65]. With the development of the first catalytic reactions in ionic liquids, the general research focus turned away from the basic studies of metal complexes dissolved in ionic liquids. Nevertheless, the relatively small number of papers published in the last few years that deal with spectroscopic investigations of transition metal catalysis in ionic liquids clearly demonstrate the value of this kind of analytic work for the overall development of this field. 

Analytical chemistry of the recent years is strongly influenced by automation. Data acquisition from analytical instruments - and sometimes also controlling of instruments - by a computer are principally solved since many years. Availability of microcomputers made these tasks also feasible from the economic point of view. Besides these basic applications of computers in chemical measurements scientists developed computer programs for solving more sophisticated problems for which some kind of "intelligence" is usually supposed to be necessary. Harmless numerical experiments on this topic led to passionate discussions about the theme "which jobs cannot be done by a computer but only by human brain ". If this question is useful at all it should not be answered a priori. Application of computers in chemistry is a matter of utility sometimes it is a social problem, but it is never a question of piety for the human brain. 

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