Math is greener than chemistry: Assessing green chemistry impact of chemometrics

Chemometric modeling is an important part of the modern analytical chemistry allowing reliable qualitative and quantitative analysis in numerous practically important tasks. Besides significant simplification and cost reduction of analytical procedures achieved through the application of chemometrics, there is a considerable green impact from the use of these methods. However, not so many reports evaluate the particular impact of the chemometric procedures on making the analysis green. Here we evaluate this impact using the popular Eco-Scale greenness score. A combination of chemometric methods with inexpensive spectroscopic, electroanalytical and other techniques eliminates the need in applying dangerous and environmentally unfriendly reagents and procedures. Based on the literature data from several representative case studies we have demonstrated that the Eco-Scale score in addressing particular analytical tasks can be improved up to 40 points through the use of chemometric-based methods.