In this textbook author tried to take a logical approach by moving from the discussion of large instruments at the beginning of the book to small instruments at the end of the book. This also means that the book moves from traditional equipment through modern technology to instruments only described in the literature, and at the same time from commercially available equipment to devices only at the research and development stage.Chapter 1 is a short introduction to analytical instrumentation and the analytical process in general. In this chapter author explain his approach towards the instrumentation.
Section I covers the more conventional equipment available for analytical scientists. Author has used a unified means of illustrating the composition of instruments over the five chapters in this section. This system describes each piece of equipment in terms of five modules – source, sample, discriminator, detector and output device. Author believed this system allows for easily comparing and contrasting of instruments across the various categories, as opposed to other texts where different instrument types are represented by different schematic styles.
Chapter 2 in this section describes the spectroscopic techniques of visible and ultraviolet spectrophotometry, near infrared, mid-infrared and Raman spectrometry, fluorescence and phosphorescence, nuclear magnetic resonance, mass spectrometry and, finally, a section on atomic spectrometric techniques. Author has used the aspirin molecule as an example all the way through this section so that the spectral data obtained from each technique for a simple organic compound can be compared and contrasted easily.
Chapter 3 discusses separation techniques such as the well-known gas and liquid chromatographies, capillary electrophoresis and supercritical fluid chromatography.The latter part of Chapter 3 is devoted to hyphenated (hybrid) techniques since these are so important in today’s laboratory where complex mixtures often need to be separated prior to identifi cation and quantitation and where these demands can be met in one run. Author also explained some of the challenges that have been overcome in coupling instruments together effectively.
Chapter 4 outlines the imaging methods that are becoming so much more prevalent in analytical science where single-atom resolution is now possible. Not only are these appliances useful as stand-alone instruments but often they are linked to spectral devices to enable spectral imaging, an even more powerful tool.
Chapter 5 describes the electrochemical methods of potentiometry, voltammetry and conductivity measurement. Chapter 6 briefly covers thermoanalytical and diffraction methods.
Section II moves into the realm of smaller instruments with a discussion of why there is a drive to make devices more portable, the use of portable instruments in the laboratory (with plenty of commercially-available examples) and uses of portable devices in medical and environmental applications. Special emphasis is placed on point-of-care meters for blood glucose testing and coagulation monitoring as their technologies are based on simple, rugged chemical tests. Portable instruments in environmental monitoring have made field testing a reality.
Section III discusses process analytical instrumentation, which is a big growth area in science, especially in the petrochemical, food and beverage and pharmaceutical industries. Manufacturers have had to shift the analytical emphasis of their equipment from sensitive to rugged and analytical scientists have had to think like and work with engineers in order to install on-line and in-line assays. After discussing in-process sampling and in-process analysis, a number of examples are given of instruments that are being used in process analytics applications.
Section IV then tackles the most recent trend in analytical instrumentation, which are miniaturization and the drive to create lab-on-a-chip devices. In this section, author discussed the development of chip-based technologies and the challenges associated with this such as pumping fluids on the microscale, fitting components onto a chip, detection strategies and how processes such as mixing are so different in the microworld when compared to the macroworld.
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