Green analytical chemistry focuses on making analytical procedures more environmentally benign and safer to humans. The amounts and toxicity of reagents, generated waste, energy requirements, the number of procedural steps, miniaturization, and automation are just a few of the multitude of criteria considered when assessing an analytical methodology’s greenness. The use of greenness assessment criteria requires dedicated tools. We propose the Analytical GREEnness calculator, a comprehensive, flexible, and straightforward assessment approach that provides an easily interpretable and informative result. The assessment criteria are taken from the 12 principles of green analytical chemistry (SIGNIFICANCE) and are transformed into a unified 0–1 scale. The final score is calculated based on the SIGNIFICANCE principles. The result is a pictogram indicating the final score, performance of the analytical procedure in each criterion, and weights assigned by the user. Freely available software makes the assessment procedure straightforward. It is open-source and downloadable from .
Abstract:The concept of green chemistry is widely recognized in chemical laboratories. To properly measure an environmental impact of chemical processes, dedicated assessment tools are required. This paper summarizes the current state of knowledge in the field of development of green chemistry and green analytical chemistry metrics. The diverse methods used for evaluation of the greenness of organic synthesis, such as eco-footprint, E-Factor, EATOS, and Eco-Scale are described. Both the well-established and recently developed green analytical chemistry metrics, including NEMI labeling and analytical Eco-scale, are presented. Additionally, this paper focuses on the possibility of the use of multivariate statistics in evaluation of environmental impact of analytical procedures. All the above metrics are compared and discussed in terms of their advantages and disadvantages. The current needs and future perspectives in green chemistry metrics are also discussed.
Analysis of organic compounds in samples characterized by different composition of the matrix is very important in many areas. A vast majority of organic compound determinations are performed using gas or liquid chromatographic methods. It is thus very important that these methods have negligible environmental impact. Chromatographic techniques have the potential to be greener at all steps of the analysis, from sample collection and preparation to separation and final determination. The paper summarizes the approaches used to accomplish the goals of green chromatography. While complete elimination of sample preparation would be an ideal approach, it is not always practical. Solventless extraction techniques offer a very good alternative. Where solvents must be used, the focus should be on the minimization of their consumption. The approaches used to make chromatographic separations greener differ depending on the type of chromatography. In gas chromatography it is advisable to move away from using helium as the carrier gas because it is a non-renewable resource. GC separations using low thermal mass technology can be greener because of energy savings offered by this technology. In liquid chromatography the focus should be on the reduction of solvent consumption and replacement of toxic and environmentally hazardous solvents with more benign alternatives. Multidimensional separation techniques have the potential to make the analysis greener in both GC and LC. The environmental impact of the method is often determined by the location of the instrument with respect to the sample collection point.
Green analytical chemistry although is not a new concept, it does not have greenness metrics system. Some efforts have been made to develop suitable metrics for analytical chemistry. The present review analyses the different methods proposed for an accurate greenness metrics system.
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