In research supported by the Analytical and Surface Chemistry Program in the Analytical Division, Prof. Settle, his co-workers, and students continue the development of robotic systems for automation of the analytical chemistry laboratory. Combining an expert system shell, statistical analysis routines, and robots, they will strive to package classical wet chemistry analysis techniques in a flexible, transferable manner so that any robot-equipped laboratory can employ identical procedures and good laboratory practices. This promises to do for titrimetric, spectrophotometric, and gravimetric methods what has already occurred for more automated elemental analysis and mass spectrometric methods: standardize procedures and quality control methods between laboratories. %%% Settle and coworkers will continue their efforts to employ laboratory robots and expert systems software to automate the analytical chemistry laboratory. By taking the tedium out of measurements and putting repeatability in, they will develop analytical methods with improved reliability and transferability between laboratories. This will reduce the amount of repetitious method development that will be needed in different laboratories attempting the same measurements. In the long run, it will also reduce the cost of performing wet chemical determinations while improving precision.
