Elemental analysis: an important purity control but prone to manipulations

Abstract

Elemental analysis provides a powerful analytical tool for purity determination of compounds and is a prerequisite for publication in many journals dealing with (bio)inorganic synthetic chemistry. However, in contrast to other analytical methods, there is no requirement to prove the presented values e.g. with chromatograms, making this essential analysis prone to manipulations. Our personal observation in the review process of numerous manuscripts over the last years revealed that the amount of questionable data is constantly increasing. Within this article we discuss what realistic measured deviations from the theoretical composition of a compound are and present an approach to provide original elemental analysis data to support the listed values in the experimental sections. This would enable reviewers, editors and readers to better judge the presented results in the future.