The Application of Chelate Compounds in Analytical Chemistry

The application of chelate reactions in a general way began a few years before the turn of the century, but the term 'chelate' was coined considerably later by Morgan and his colleagues at the University of Birmingham, who made the first systematic studies. Work in this field has continued at Birmingham for over half a century, apart from a break during the war years. During the last twenty-five years the main attention has been confined to the analytical applications. Several new reagents have been discovered and have been applied in spectrophotometry, spectrofluorimetry, titrimetry, gravimetry, gas—liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry. A number of new synthetic processes has been developed and various structural studies have been made.