Environment-functionality-cost balance of an analytical reagent

Abstract

Green chemistry was originally mainly driven by organic synthetic approaches, but green analytics is slowly following, searching for ways to reduce volumes, cost and ecotoxicity of analytically used chemicals and lowering energy usage. The emphasis is currently focussed on techniques such as miniaturization, on-line spectroscopy, or the chemicals directly used in the analytical process, e.g. chromatographic solvents. However, almost no attention has yet been paid to the analytical reagents, and more specifically, the way they are produced and used in greening analytics. In the analysis of low level analytes, such as peptides in the biomedical area, a prominent challenge is their possible adsorption to glass or plastic consumables used during analysis. In this research, a recently developed anti-adsorption diluent based on bovine serum albumin, acetonitrile and formic acid, was investigated towards greener alternatives. The 12 principles of green chemistry were applied, but also the anti-adsorption functionality and cost-efficiency were taken into account to obtain a more holistic sustainability view. A Derringer desirability function was used to convert these 3 aspects into one overall ‘fit-for-purpose’ score, from which it was concluded that replacing acetonitrile by (denatured) ethanol is the most optimal choice, whilst maintaining bovine serum albumin as protein source.