ArticleAnalytical and bioanalytical chemistry2026
Environmental performance of analytical methods: insights from life cycle assessment on four analytical chemistry workflows.
Article in Analytical and bioanalytical chemistry, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Analytical chemistry plays a central role in research and innovation, yet its environmental impacts remain insufficiently represented in sustainability assessments. Current score-based "greenness" indicators-defined as the compliance to the 12 green analytical chemistry principles-often overlook upstream and downstream processes, such as instrument manufacturing and data management. This study applies life cycle assessment (LCA) to characterize the environmental performance of four representative workflows in a cosmetic industry R&I setting: an untargeted UPLC-PDA/HRMS analysis of natural extracts and three phenoxyethanol quantification methods (GC-MS, HPLC-UV, UPLC-UV). Inventories were structured to distinguish sample preparation, instrumental analysis, and data processing from supporting flows like consumables and energy. The results reveal distinct environmental hotspots for each protocol. The UPLC-PDA/HRMS workflow exhibited a climate change impact of 4.30 kg CO₂eq, driven by the amortization of the devices and the sample transport. In contrast, the GC-MS workflow (3.82 kg CO₂eq) was heavily influenced by dichloromethane production, while the HPLC-UV protocol reached 6.84 kg CO₂eq due to consumable-related flows and longer run times. These findings demonstrate that environmental burdens are highly workflow-specific and that commonly cited factors, such as solvent use, are not always the primary drivers. The study concludes that the normalization factors from the product environmental footprint (PEF) method are inadequate for analytical laboratory contexts and suggests that quantitative LCA provides a necessary complement to score-based metrics like the analytical greenness metric (AGREE) for supporting robust eco-design and corporate sustainability initiatives.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.