From Flow Injection Analysis to Sensor Injection and Towards New Analytical Methodologies for the Next Century

Abstract

Flow injection analysis (FIA) has developed within last 15 years into a well established laboratory technique, the scope of which has been recorded in several monographs [1 - 5] and in over three thousand papers published to date. While it would be tempting ( and comfortable) merely to review this past success, it has been suggested to me by the Organizer of this Workshop to attempt something more valuable , that is to look fifteen years into the future and to speculate how this technique will develop in the hands of the next generation of our younger colleagues. The futility of such undertaking is surpassed only by irresistibility of such a task. It is certain, however that any projection made now, will be surpassed by actual developments. Indeed, flow injection has already undergone an amazing transformation from a laboratory technique to methodology of enhancement of instrumental analysis.