Search

In this study, a simple, fast, and green smartphone-based procedure for total biogenic amines content determination in wine was developed.

Soil is one of the most important farming resources. Appropriate managing of its quality promotes productive and sustainable agriculture. The valuable farm practice in soil quality managing is based on regular soil analysis with the aim of determining the exact amount of nutrients or other chemical, physical, and biological soil properties. Soil analysis usually requires sample collection at the desired sampling depth followed by sample delivery to chemical laboratories. However, laboratory analyses are resource-intensive and costly, and require a lot of time, effort, and equipment. A low-cost, fast, and effective alternative for soil quality control is the application of smartphones to perform chemical analyses directly in the field or on the farm. In this paper, an overview of recent developments on smartphone-based methodologies for agricultural purposes and portable evaluation of soil quality and its properties is presented. The discussion focuses on recent applications of smartphone-based devices for the determination of basic soil parameters, content of organic matter, mineral fertilizers, and organic or inorganic pollutants. Obvious advantages of using smartphones, such as convenience and simplicity of use, and the main shortcomings, such as relatively poor precision of the results obtained, are also discussed. The general trend shows the huge interest from researchers to move the technology into the field with the aim of providing cost-effective and rapid soil analysis. This paper can broaden the understanding of using smartphones for chemical analysis of soil samples, as it is a relatively new area and is expected to be developed rapidly. Graphical Abstract

Background The ubiquity of smartphones equipped with an array of sophisticated sensors, ample processing power, network connectivity and a convenient interface makes them a promising tool for non-invasive, portable food quality assessment. Combined with the recent developments in the areas of IoT, deep learning algorithms and cloud computing, they present an opportunity for advancing wide-spread, equitable and sustainable food analytical methods that could be used at each stage of food production and distribution. Scope and approach This review focuses on the use of smartphone-based methods in food quality assessment and monitoring, with particular emphasis on the ones in which smartphones are used as detectors, either on their own or in conjunction with more elaborate analytical procedures. The role of these methods in common and equitable access to information on food quality is discussed, together with a consideration of the sustainability and greenness of the smartphone-based methods and a perspective on the methodology and validation. Additionally, recent developments and future research trends are also outlined. Key findings and conclusions Despite the persisting limitations resulting from technical difficulties and the complexity of the food sample matrix, smartphones will play an increasingly important role in popularizing the access to food analytical techniques for on-site analysis as a readily available and convenient integrated interface, connectivity and remote sensing platforms.

Green chemistry requires a metrics system that is comprehensive by the criteria included and simple in the application at the same time. We propose the application of multicriteria decision analysis for comparative greenness assessment of organic synthesis procedures. The assessment is based on 9 criteria (the reagent, reaction efficiency, atom economy, temperature, pressure, synthesis time, solvent, catalyst and reactant) for which data points are easily extractable from synthesis protocols. The criteria are given weights by two experts to differentiate their relative importance. Two datasets are created, one of the procedures for benzoic acid synthesis, the second one of procedures for γ-valerolactone synthesis. In both cases, the greenest procedure is identified and the remaining ones are ranked according to their greenness. The proposed assessment procedure incorporates more assessment criteria than product/waster ratio mass-based metric and is much less tedious than the application of life-cycle assessment.

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 https://mostwiedzy.pl/AGREE.

A simple, green and equitable procedure for total biogenic amines (BAs) content determination was developed. The scientific novelty lies in the use of commercially available S0378 dye, the reaction of which with BAs results in a colour change of the solution. Sample preparation and analysis were simplified to make the method suitable for routine analyses even in resource-scarce settings. The optimization of the method was carried out using a Box-Behnken response surface design. The developed method has satisfactory figures of merit for putrescine equivalent determination with R

This study presents the application of one of the tools from the multicriteria decision analysis set (MCDA), the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). Selected green analytical chemistry metrics were used to rank analytical procedures for the phthalate determination in disposable baby diapers. Nine analytical procedures were assessed in order to find one that has the lowest environmental impact and the best analytical figures of merit. Nine different criteria, where weighting was based on the experts’ evaluation, were used in the procedures’ assessment. With the use of TOPSIS, an easy and straightforward technique, selection of the most appropriate procedure was made.

The impact values for the environmental emissions of 52 solvents are estimated and expressed in monetary units. The impact values of solvents present in the air are calculated on the basis of 13 impact indicators and additional 2 impact indicators for solvents present in water. These impact values are weighed with the results obtained with a multi-compartment distribution model, allowing the calculation of the fraction of solvent emitted to the environment present in each of the compartments. The results show that the impact values of solvent emissions are in the range of 0.7–1179.51 $ L−1, with a mean value of 20.69 $ L−1, expressed in USD2019. These impacts are considerably lower for short-chain aliphatic hydrocarbons, alcohols, ethers, aldehydes, ketones, and esters. High impact values are obtained for long-chain aliphatic hydrocarbons, aromatic hydrocarbons, terpenes, and an extremely high value for carbon tetrachloride. Monetary values calculated to assess the solvent emission impact have the advantage that they are quantitative and easily applicable.

Catalysis is a very important process in industry and laboratory practices, especially from the point of green chemistry principles. However, the eco-friendly character of heterogeneous catalysts c...

Green analytical chemistry introduces the ideas of reduction of analytical activities impact on the environment. However, to be more sustainable, analytical chemistry should include social aspects in greater manner. In this light ‘equitable’ analytical procedures, which are easily available in terms of price and applicability by everyday user, are developed. These positive trends are observed as many procedures, based on commonly used for nonanalytical purpose devices, are developed. Some examples of methods based on smartphones, scanners, 3D printers, or espresso machines are presented herein. With this contribution, we want to stress that green analytical chemistry is not tantamount to sustainable analytical chemistry as it does not include social equity factors.

Optimization of extraction process requires finding acceptable conditions for many analytes and good performance in terms of process time or solvent consumption. These optimization criteria are often contradictory to each other, the performance of the system in given conditions is good for some criteria but poor for others. Therefore, such problems require special assessment tools that allow to combine these contradictory criteria into single score to find “the golden mean”. This contribution summarizes the examples of approaches that are used for multi-objective optimization. Derringer's desirability functions are used for large variety of microextraction techniques optimizations. Finding Pareto-optimal solutions allows to easily separate conditions that are definitely not acceptable. Alternative solution is application of multi-criteria decision analysis for microextraction processes optimization.

One of the current trends in green analytical chemistry is the introduction of green solvents, some of which are biobased. At the same time, the development of the biorefinery concept has allowed more biochemicals to be obtained with increased efficiency and from a wider range of feedstocks. The first examples of the use of biosolvents in analytical applications included extractions performed with alcohols, esters, and terpenes. However, many more applications of biosolvents in extractions of bioactive compounds from various plant materials have also been reported, which hints at a wider range of potential analytical applications of biosolvents. It should also be noted that the biobased solvents applied in analytical chemistry are not always green, as some of them are toxic towards aquatic organisms. Graphical abstract.

The paper shows very systematic method of selection of derivatisation agents for a given group of analytes. In this study 8 derivatisation agents are assessed for their capability to derivatise 8 chlorophenols. Multicriteria decision analysis is used to combine many objectives of derivatisation agents selection into single, easy to be interpreted numerical value. Three basic analyses were performed to obtain rankings with the aims to assess derivatisation reaction, chromatographic separation of derivatised analytes and greenness of derivatisation agents. The first assessment showed acetic anhydride to be the most favourable alternative, the second one indicated N,O‑bis(trimethylsilyl)trifluoroacetamide (BSTFA) - chlorotrimethylsilane (TMCS) mixture to give the best separation and the third proved heptafluorobutyrylimidazole (HFBI) to be the greenest agent. Fourth, comprehensive assessment showed BSTFA:TMCS to have the best total performance. Multicriteria decision analysis can be successfully applied in analytical procedure multi-objective optimisation, at the stage of derivatisation agent selection.

The present study describes a simple procedure to separate into patterns of similarity a large group of solvents, 259 in total, presented by 15 specific descriptors (experimentally found and theoretically predicted physicochemical parameters). Solvent data is usually characterized by its high variability, different molecular symmetry, and spatial orientation. Methods of chemometrics can usefully be used to extract and explore accurately the information contained in such data. In this order, advanced fuzzy divisive hierarchical-clustering methods were efficiently applied in the present study of a large group of solvents using specific descriptors. The fuzzy divisive hierarchical associative-clustering algorithm provides not only a fuzzy partition of the solvents investigated, but also a fuzzy partition of descriptors considered. In this way, it is possible to identify the most specific descriptors (in terms of higher, smallest, or intermediate values) to each fuzzy partition (group) of solvents. Additionally, the partitioning performed could be interpreted with respect to the molecular symmetry. The chemometric approach used for this goal is fuzzy c-means method being a semi-supervised clustering procedure. The advantage of such a clustering process is the opportunity to achieve separation of the solvents into similarity patterns with a certain degree of membership of each solvent to a certain pattern, as well as to consider possible membership of the same object (solvent) in another cluster. Partitioning based on a hybrid approach of the theoretical molecular descriptors and experimentally obtained ones permits a more straightforward separation into groups of similarity and acceptable interpretation. It was shown that an important link between objects&rsquo, groups of similarity and similarity groups of variables is achieved. Ten classes of solvents are interpreted depending on their specific descriptors, as one of the classes includes a single object and could be interpreted as an outlier. Setting the results of this research into broader perspective, it has been shown that the fuzzy clustering approach provides a useful tool for partitioning by the variables related to the main physicochemical properties of the solvents. It gets possible to offer a simple guide for solvents recognition based on theoretically calculated or experimentally found descriptors related to the physicochemical properties of the solvents.

This study describes the VOCs emissions from commercially available latex balloons. Nine compounds are determined to be emitted from 13 types of balloons of different colors and imprints in 30 and 60 °C. The average values of total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs) emitted from studied samples ranged from 0.054 up to 7.18 μg g−1 and from 0.27 up to 36.11 μg g−1 for 30 °C and 60 °C, respectively. The dataset is treated with principal component analysis (PCA) and multiple curve resolution (MCR) to characterize its internal patterns. Here two groups on compounds are recognized – the first one related to balloon material, the second one being emissions of compounds previously adsorbed on balloon material. The toxicity assessment of MCR modeled balloons’ emissions was performed by toxic unit (TU) approach. The obtained TUs were summed to give toxicity emission assessment. The incorporation of TUs allows to identify the balloons with the most toxic emissions– imprinted ones in 60 °C. The compounds of the highest TUs are hexanal and benzene. FTIR analysis shows that all balloons are made of the same polymeric material – isoprene, so all differences in emissions are related to different additives like pigments, imprints or these responsible for opaqueness. Analyzing the obtained research results it was noticed that latex balloons might be considered as an important source of emission of aliphatic and monoaromatic hydrocarbons to the gaseous phase.

This chapter introduces the need to develop methods for evaluating analytical procedures in the light of green analytical chemistry. Green chemistry metrics are not applicable in analytical chemistry because they refer to the mass of a product and no product with mass is generated during analytical determinations. Evaluations of analytical greenness are based on scoring, with methods such as NEMI and Eco-scale, or comparative analysis as in the case of multicriteria decision analysis. Another important aspect is the assessment of solvents and reagents that are applied in analytical procedures for their greening. Various environmental, safety and health parameters are included in the assessments of solvents and reagents. The mechanisms of evaluation and numerous examples are presented and some results of assessments of reagents and solvents are also included to help analysts in the selection of greener alternatives.

This contributions introduces the need to develop the methods to evaluate analytical procedures in the light of green analytical chemistry. Green chemistry metrics are not applicable in analytical chemistry because they refer to the mass of product and no product with mass is generated during analytical determination. Analytical greenness evaluations are based on scoring - such as NEMI or Eco-scale or comparative analysis as it is in case of multicriteria decision analysis. Important aspect is also the assessment of solvents and reagents that are applied in analytical procedures for their greening. The different environmental, safety and health parameters are included in the assessments of solvents and reagents. The contribution presents the mechanisms of evaluation and numerous examples. Some results of reagents and solvents assessments are also presented to help analysts in selection greener alternatives.

The study shows the application of analytical hierarchy process (AHP) in ranking the analytical procedures, that are applied for resveratrol determination in wine samples. 19 different analytical methodologies are described by metrological, economic and environmental criteria, that are further divided into 10 subcriteria. Before AHP application, the amount of input data is decreased with cluster analysis. The first run of AHP is aimed to rank the clustered analytical procedures, while the second analysis is performed to select the best procedure from the cluster with the highest rank obtained in the first AHP run. The procedure based on a direct sample injection to high performance liquid chromatography with UV detection is the most beneficial one. AHP is excellent tool for the assessment and the selection of the most appropriate analytical procedure from several available. The choice of MCDA method is dictated by the fact, that so far, no examples of the usage of a given method for the selection of the optimal analytical procedure have been found in the literature.

Nowadays, there is increasing interest in global sustainability, and thus, university students would like to know how human actions affect the health status of our planet. This is mainly due to their basic knowledge of problems such as global warming and greenhouse gases. Students would like to gain knowledge on how to safeguard the earth for future generations. This must involve changes in education programs at interested institutions and universities. To ensure that future generations of chemists are equipped with proper knowledge, significant efforts are needed. Thus, this article aims to present the history of green chemistry, its milestones, and ideas on how to teach this subject. A discussion of awareness in the field of green chemistry and of existing teaching materials is presented. In addition, green chemistry metrics, which should be known and used by professors and students, are described. Teaching methods for green chemistry are also given, with special attention paid to organic and analytical chemistry education.

Proper decision making in multifacitated situation is very challenging task. It is especially difficult if there are many alternatives and criteria that are often contradictory. Analytical chemistry and related sciences involve many situations where decisions on complex problems are made. The support tools may be the use of MCDA (Multi-criteria Decision Analysis) algorithms. They formalize the decision process, make it transparent in all its aspects. In this review the application of MCDA methods in analytical and some related sciences is presented. The main areas of utilization are selection of proper materials and selection or optimization of processes. Their potential areas of applications are far from being fully explored. This review provides useful insights into the MCDA methods usage in analytical chemistry field that can stimulate the application of these tools in complex decision making processes.

A novel and efficient approach to optimization of extraction step prior the chromatographic determination of nine chlorinated phenols is described. It is based on the combination of design of experiments and multicriteria decision analysis. Such an approach is used to optimize dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction procedure for the determination of 9 chlorophenols in water samples. Three parameters are optimized – sample volume, volume of disperser solvent and extraction solvent. Combination of the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution with central composite design allows to perform multi-analyte procedure optimization. It gives information about the efficiency of the system for every experimental plan point in terms of closeness to ideal solution. The optimal conditions for extraction of chlorophenols are 76 μL of extraction solvent, 0.6 mL of dispersive solvent and 6.7 mL of water sample. The presented approach has the potential to be applied in variety of optimization systems.

Debris from deciduous trees in the form of park green waste was investigated as a potential biosorbent for the removal of chlorinated solvents from water. The sorption properties of beech leaves and cupules, oak leaves and acorns, birch leaves and lime leaves (all tree species common for a moderate climate) in a non-modified form were investigated with regard to the removal of perchloroethylene, 1,1,2-trichloroethane and 1,1,1,2-tetrachlorothane. The preliminary results showed that these biosorbents are characterized by very similar sorption properties as well as the surface area and elemental composition. Therefore the sorption capacities and rate constants were determined in the mixture of debris sampled from park green waste. The values of sorption capacity and partitioning coefficient of biosorbent mixture varied from 22.4 to 70 μg g-1, and from 28 to 173 L kg-1 respectively. The pseudo-first order reaction kinetics model was fitted to the experimental data, yielding rate constants in the range 0.0187-0.0223 min-1. Due to the lowest polarity, perchloroethylene was a sorbate with the highest affinity for sorbent surface. The results show that chlorinated solvents can be sorbed on park green waste. Although park green waste displays weak sorption capacity, it might be still an attractive sorbent due to good availability and low cost.

In the case of quantitative and qualitative analysis of pesticides in environmental and food samples, it is required to perform a sample pre-treatment process. It allows to minimalize the impact of interferences on the final results, as well as increase the recovery rate. Nowadays, apart from routinely employed sample preparation techniques such as solid-phase extraction (SPE) or solid-phase microextraction (SPME), the application of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) is gaining greater popularity. It is mainly related to their physicochemical properties, sorption capacity and selectivity, thermo-mechanical resistance, as well as a wide range of polymerization techniques allowing to obtain the desired type of sorption materials, adequate to a specific type of pesticide. This paper targets to summarize the most popular and innovative strategies since 2010, associated with the MIPs synthesis and analytical procedures for pesticides determination in environmental and food samples. Application of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) allows for visualization of the most beneficial analytical procedures in case of changing the priority of each step of analysis (MIPs synthesis, sample preparation process—pesticides extraction, chromatographic analysis) bearing in mind metrological and environmental issues.

The ever-increasing demand for determining compounds at low concentration levels in complex matrices requires a preliminary step of analytes isolation/enrichment in order to employ a detection technique characterized by high sensitivity at low LOQ. Sample preparation is considered as crucial part of analytical procedures. Previously the parameter of “greenness” is as important as selectivity in order to avoid using harmful organic solvents in sustainable extraction techniques. These solvents can generate hazardous, toxic waste while consuming large resources volume. Developing new green solvents is one of the key subjects in Green Chemistry in order to reduce the intensity of anthropogenic activities related to analytical laboratories. A lot of new, more eco-friendly media have been employed as extractant phases. These media, besides of being more eco-friendly, provide shorter extraction times, simplicity, low cost, better selectivity in some cases. The most promising, most widely used green extraction solvents are described in this review.

The paper presents the most recent advances in analytical applications of greener organic solvents. Substitution of problematic solvents with more benign organic ones is much easier than shifting to technique applying alternative solvents, such as ionic liquids or supercritical fluids. In the area of liquid chromatography greener mobile phases, much attention is given to application ethanol or acetone instead of acetonitrile. Solvent-based extractions more often include the application of bio-based organic solvents, such as esters, alcohols or terpenes. All solvents applied in analytical sciences should be carefully assessed before their application.

Critical and global evaluation of analytical methods should be one of the primary goals in analytical chemistry. A holistic approach, however, requires a look at the varied features: commonly discussed validation criteria, often underrated practical and economic aspects, and typically overlooked compliance with the principles of green analytical chemistry. Carrying out such an assessment in a critical and transparent way is extremely difficult without special tools. The purpose of this work is to discuss and compare the three different approaches that seem to be potential candidates: multi-criteria decision analysis methods (MCDA), HEXAGON, and RGB model. The basic principles of each methodology, individual possibilities offered, and the results of the assessment of selected model methods will be presented. Ultimately, the potential compatibility of assessing the same group of methods using different tools will be examined. This contribution can help to select optimal tool and conduct more thorough and insightful assessments.

Chemometric tools are widely used in analytical chemistry for the reduction of data dimensionality, grouping of variables, and processing of analytical signals. They have also the potential to be applied in analytical procedure development with the aim of minimizing the procedure's environmental impact. The design of experiment gives the possibility to obtain much better information on the system response than in the case of ‘changing one variable at a time’ approach. This results in materials and energy savings. Desirability functions applied together with the design of experiment create a possibility to include in procedure development the variables that directly refer to the procedure's greenness. In this way, analysis time, consumption of solvents or reagents, and mobile phase (in the case of liquid chromatography) can be minimized. Cluster analysis and principal component analysis are successfully applied to find greener solvent alternatives.

A novel procedure for assessing the environmental risk related to solvent emissions has been developed. The assessment of risk was based on detailed hazard and exposure investigations. The potential exposure related to different environmental phases was calculated using a basic multimedia model, which gives the percentage distribution of solvent in environmental compartments as a result. Specific hazards – toxicological, environmental persistence or photochemical ozone creation data have been assigned to each compartment. The environmental distribution of solvents gives the weights applied in the multicriteria decision analysis, which was applied to obtain the full ranking of solvents. The results show that alcohols and esters can be considered as low environmental risk solvents, whereas chlorinated solvents or aromatic hydrocarbons are the most problematic. The assessment procedure holds promise for solvent selection during process design as well as in finding alternatives to hazardous solvents used in existing processes.

The study reported herein is aimed at the greenness assessment of 267 derivatisation agents that are frequently applied in analytical chemistry and related disciplines. Multicriteria decision analysis allowed obtaining three rankings of derivatisation agents applied in liquid chromatography, gas chromatography and chiral analysis. The criteria of assessment included the safety information obtained from material safety data sheets and physicochemical and environmental parameters predicted with relevant models. As for some of the agents predicted data were not available, these agents were assessed with a smaller number of criteria, within the ranking of low confidence. The results of the study will help to apply greener derivatisation agents, wherever the green chemistry principle of avoiding derivatisation cannot be fulfilled.

A standard method can be considered as a common-good “resource,” and the solution to “the commons” problems usually lies in societal self-organization. The multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) was applied to model complex phenomena, such as the standard selection for imidacloprid determination. In this process, the standard was self-selected by the analytical chemistry society. The results show that analytical chemistry is a subject of rapid development that is not reflected in the modernity of standard methods. A standard method candidate, selected by the analytical society, better fulfills the green (analytical) chemistry principles. The proper standard selection is the most suitable way to control analytical laboratory-related pollution. We suggest more involvement of the analytical society in the standard method management for making analytical chemistry more sustainable and also for the management of analytical chemistry-related pollution.

This study presents a novel support tool for the optimization and development of analytical methods. The tool is based on multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), namely the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to the Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), that allows users to rank possible solutions according to their requirements. In this study, we performed rankings of pairs of eight extraction and three dispersive solvents used in DLLME for chlorophenols extraction from water samples. The first ranking involved sensitivity and precision of the method for each of the nine chlorophenols. The tool is a quantitative solution to the common analytical problem that the change of analytical performance results in better performance for some analytes and worse for others. The second ranking included the assessment of the greenness of each pair of solvents, based on toxicological, ecotoxicological and environmental persistence criteria. The third ranking was based on a combination of sensitivity, precision and greenness criteria. Heptane as an extraction solvent and acetone as a dispersive solvent were selected as the most appropriate ones. The TOPSIS tool is a successful, easy to implement, incorporation of green analytical chemistry values to analytical method optimization.

This study presents an application of the Hasse diagram technique (HDT) as the assessment tool to select the most appropriate analytical procedures according to their greenness or the best analytical performance. The dataset consists of analytical procedures for benzo[a]pyrene determination in sediment samples, which were described by 11 variables concerning their greenness and analytical performance. Two analyses with the HDT were performed—the first one with metrological variables and the second one with “green” variables as input data. Both HDT analyses ranked different analytical procedures as the most valuable, suggesting that green analytical chemistry is not in accordance with metrology when benzo[a]pyrene in sediment samples is determined. The HDT can be used as a good decision support tool to choose the proper analytical procedure concerning green analytical chemistry principles and analytical performance merits. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00216-016-9473-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Deep eutectic solvents (DES) are often considered as green solvents because of their properties, such as negligible vapor pressure, biodegradability, low toxicity or natural origin of their components. Due to the fact that DES are cheaper than ionic liquids, they have gained many applications in a short period of time. However, claims about their greenness sometimes seem to be exaggerated. Especially, bearing in mind lots of data gaps for DES properties as well as their individual components. To clarify the situation on their greenness status, a comprehensive assessment of commonly used hydrogen bond acceptors and donors separately and as DES is performed. The application of multicriteria decision analysis (TOPSIS ranking) with combination of biological effect modeling for DES to rank these alternatives according to greenness criteria is proposed. Also traditional organic solvents and ionic liquids as greenness reference points for better understanding are introduced. The ranking results show that many DES, which are synthetized by mixing sugars alcohols, alcohols, sugars and amides are promising environmentally friendly solvents, more than some imidazolium-based ionic liquids. Mixtures including components with metal ions and organic acids are less green.

Due to various desirable physicochemical properties, ionic liquids (ILs) are still gaining in popularity. ILs have been recurrently considered green solvents. However, environmental, health and safety assessments of ILs have raised certain doubts about their benignness, and their greenness status is currently unclear. To clarify the situation on their greenness, we perform a comprehensive assessment of more than 300 commercially available ILs. We apply multicriteria decision analysis, the tool that allows ranking many alternatives according to relevant criteria. They are toxicity towards various organisms, biodegradability, hazard statements and precautionary measures during their handling. We incorporated organic solvents to rankings, as their greenness is better described, so they serve as greenness reference points. The ranking results obtained considering the whole set of criteria show that ILs are placed between recommended polar solvents and problematic/undesirable non polar organic solvents in terms of greenness. However, the exclusion of toxicity data due to unavailability of endpoints results in assessment of ILs as greener than most of organic solvents.

Greenness of analytical procedure is multivariable aspect as many greenness criteria should be taken into consideration. On the other hand, modern analytical chemistry offers dozens of analytical procedures, based on different sample preparation and final determination techniques that are used for the determination of a given analyte in a given matrix. For such complex decision-making processes, multi-criteria decision analysis tools are applied as a systematic approach to deal with complex decisions. Multi-criteria decision analysis can be treated as green analytical chemistry comparative metric tool if criteria of assessment describe procedures greenness. In this contribution, we present the results of ranking of seven analytical procedures that are used for the determination of benzo[a]pyrene in smoked food products. The results of TOPSIS, AHP, PROMETHEE application indicate that the first rank is scored by microwave-assisted extraction followed by high-performance liquid chromatography with spectrofluorometric detection, indicating this procedure as the greenest alternative. The contribution describes a step-by-step approach to the application of three multi-criteria decision analysis tools as green analytical chemistry metrics systems.