Dedicated to the blessed memory of dearly departed Valeria Kosvina
The textbook outlines the general theoretical foundations of analytical chemistry and qualitative analysis. This determines the sequence and the scope of the material, the order of the chapters and their titles. This internal limitation helped to overcome the probably main difficulty in writing the book - inherent motivation to describe the concerned topic in a flexible manner, both in-depth and in detail.
Please pay your attention to some features of the edition.
A brief historical sketch of the development of analytical chemistry (analytics) (Chapter 2) has been presented in more detail, compared to its traditional description in well-known analytical chemistry courses. In the words of A.S. Pushkin, ?Respect for the past is the line separating civility from wildness.? However, the remarkable work of F. Sabadvari and A. Robinson ?The History of Analytical Chemistry? (M.: Mir, 1984) has already become a rarity hard to access for students and university teachers. Considering this circumstance, we have compiled this chapter following the main principles of F. Sabadvary?s and A. Robinson?s approach, as far as it is possible to do. However, we had to make a number of adjustments, changes, and additions, for example, in the description of the history of optical and chromatographic methods of analysis and many other cases.
We paid much attention to qualitative chemical analysis, including specific procedures, since particular chemical reactions to various cations and anions are frequently used; in other words, they are used daily in pharmaceutical analysis in general and in pharmacopeial tests in particular to control the identity of drug substances (?active ingredients'' according to the international nomenclature) and components of dosage forms. Presently qualitative analysis is likely used in pharmacy much more often than in any other field of human activity; therefore, a specialist in the field needs substantial skills in it.