What does it do for analytical chemistry

Chemometrics tools can be used for a wide variety of tasks, including experimental design, exploratory data analysis, and the development of predictive models. In the context of analytical chemistry, however, chemometrics has been shown to be most effective for two general functions  

I venture to say that the majority of practical chemometrics applications in analytical chemistry are in the area of instrument specialization. The need to improve specificity of an analyzer depends on both the analytical technology and the application. For example, chemometrics is often applied to near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, due to the fact that the information in NIR spectra is generally non-specific for most applications. Chemometrics may not be critical for most ICP atomic emission or mass spectrometry applications because these techniques provide sufficient selectivity for most applications. On the other hand, there are some NIR applications that do not require chemometrics (e.g. many water analysis applications), and some ICP and mass spectrometry applications are likely where chemometrics is needed to provide sufficient selectivity. 

The information extraction function of chemometrics is a very valuable one that is often overlooked, especially in the industrial world. It will be shown that this function can be used concurrently with the instrument specialization function, rather than relying upon additional exploratory data analysis. 

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