Inorganic analytical chemistry application areas

Analytical chemistry is often described as the area of chemistry responsible for characterizing the composition of matter, both qualitatively (what is present) and quantitatively (how much is present). This description is misleading. After all, almost all chemists routinely make qualitative or quantitative measurements. The argument has been made that analytical chemistry is not a separate branch of chemistry, but simply the application of chemical knowledge. In fact, you probably have performed quantitative and qualitative analyses in other chemistry courses. For example, many introductory courses in chemistry include qualitative schemes for identifying inorganic ions and quantitative analyses involving titrations. 

It would be easier to describe those classes of compounds not normally separated by RPLC than to catalogue the applications to which RPLC has been turned. Applications for reversed phase can be found in virtually every area of analysis and are reviewed regularly in the journal Analytical Chemistry. RPLC has not been in general use for the analysis of inorganic ions, which are readily separated by ion exchange chromatography polysaccharides, which tend to be too hydrophilic to separate by RPLC polynucleotides, which tend to adsorb irreversibly to the reversed phase packing and compounds which are so hydrophobic that reversed phase offers little selectivity. 

Chemistry is a central science, but there are many diverse areas of study within it. Since the quantities determined using the ECD are important to all areas of chemistry, this book should be of interest to a variety of scientists, including environmental, analytical, physical, organic, and inorganic chemists. An untapped application is the study of thermal electron reactions with biological molecules. This is especially important since the equipment for the application of these tools is relatively inexpensive and now commercially available. 

Electrochemistry is a scientific discipline with a well developed system of theories and quantitative relationships. It has many applications and uses in both fundamental and applied areas of chemistry—in the study of corrosion phenomena, for example, for the study of the mechanisms and kinetics of electrochemical reactions, as a tool for the electrosynthesis of organic and inorganic compounds, and in the solution of quantitative analytical problems. This last area will be emphasized in the next four chapters. 

---