In a changing world, with the tremendous impact of human presence,
the urgent need for sustainability of all of our activities has
accelerated the evolution from the chemurgical paradigm to the ecological
paradigm in which the environmental side effects of our
chemical activities must be seriously taken into consideration [1].
Green Chemistry [2–4] and Green Analytical Chemistry (GAC) [5–9]
evolved from the academic sphere to the real world, so there is a
tremendous research activity on greening all aspects concerning the
analysis of any kinds of sample, not only those for environmental
studies. We are absolutely convinced that GAC will be really useful
in the years ahead. The application of cheap, fast and environmentally
safe procedures in environmental, clinical and food analysis
will improve the quality of life in developing countries [10]. So, it
can be seen that GAC has been the key tool to move from the
chemurgical paradigm to the ecological paradigm in analytical chemistry
and to create sustainable tools for challenges in the increasing
demand in analysis for a clever combination of environmentfriendly
and cheap methodologies (see Fig. 1).
Based on the 12 principles of GAC [11], many green methods were
proposed in recent years, and scientific journals have published
special issues regarding GAC practice in research and applied laboratories,
as can be observed in Table 1, so creating a wave that
modified the concepts and the practice of analysis.
In summary, GAC has been well accepted by the scientific community.
However, the change from qualitative to quantitative
observation of the green character of analytical methodologies has
evolved much more slowly than the scientific production in the field.
In this sense, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), a holistic tool encompassing
all environmental exchanges (i.e., resources, energy,
emissions, and waste) occurring during all stages of the life cycle
of activities, is a useful tool, especially when applied to products
or services for which the life-cycle concept and its stages are clearly
defined [12]. An additional semi-quantitative criterion was developed
by the Green Chemistry Institute (GCI) of the American
Chemical Society (ACS). The criterion was applied to the National
Environmental Methods Index (NEMI), a free Internet-searchable
database of environmental methods [13]. The profile criterion was
based on four key terms concerning reagents employed as: