Imagine that a small child or a loved one is rushed to a hospital's emergency room, comatose or delirious because they have just consumed an unknown white powder. The doctor takes immediate action, pumping the child's stomach and using activated charcoal as a treatment. But the most important question remains: what was it that they ate? What are the chemical compounds in the white powder and how much of each is present?

This is where analytical chemistry steps in. It is the job of the analytical chemist to determine the chemical composition of any unknown, whether it is a toxic white solid, gold ore from a mine, or the compounds in the discharge from a pulp mill. Analytical chemistry is about answering the questions "What is it?" and "How much is there?" (qualitative and quantitative analysis, respectively).

Analytical chemistry, like most of the sub-disciplines of chemistry...