Chapter 22 – Chemical Analysis: Introduction

Publisher Summary Chemical analysis is carried out as a cooperative effort by a team of experts, each having extensive knowledge of their own specialist technique, such as infrared absorption, emission spectrography, electrochemistry, or gas chromatography, while also having considerable knowledge of the capabilities of the methods used by other members of the team. Thus, the analytical chemist has become more than just a chemist measuring the chemical composition of a substance; he is now a problem solver with two more steps in the analytical process—one at the beginning (definition of the problem) and another at the end (solution to the problem). This means that the analytical chemist may measure things other than narrowly defined chemical composition—one may decide, for example, that pH measurements are better than analysis of the final product for controlling a process, or that information on the valency states of compounds on the surface of a metal is more important than determining its composition.