Analytical chemistry is the study of the separation

Separation process

In chemistry and chemical engineering, a separation process, or simply a separation, is any mass transfer process used to convert a mixture of substances into two or more distinct product mixtures, at least one of which is enriched in one or more of the mixture's constituents. In some cases, a...

, identification, and quantification

Quantification

Quantification has several distinct senses. In mathematics and empirical science, it is the act of counting and measuring that maps human sense observations and experiences into members of some set of numbers. Quantification in this sense is fundamental to the scientific method.In logic,...

 of the chemical components of natural and artificial materials. Qualitative analysis gives an indication of the identity of the chemical species in the sample and quantitative analysis

Quantitative analysis (chemistry)

In chemistry, quantitative analysis is the determination of the absolute or relative abundance of one, several or all particular substance present in a sample....

 determines the amount of one or more of these components. The separation of components is often performed prior to analysis.

Analytical methods can be separated into classical and instrumental.