Qualitative Analysis, a summary

The most important aim of the qualitative analytical chemistry could be divided in the following two activities:

1.
Having a mixture which substances are included; what are the components?

For this research we often need a separation technique. In practice the mixture will first be separated into components and after that each component will be investigated.
But: there are also techniques that can investigate substances very well, even when they are still in a mixture.

Below some important analytical separation methods
(also consult module 5, chapter 4).
Chromatography
Gas chromatography
Liquid chromatography
Gel-chromatography
Extraction
Filtration
Evaporation
http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillation

2.
When you have a pure substance, a question remains: what atoms are in this substance and how are they connected?

Qualitative analysis of a pure substance mostly is executed in two phases, two areas
that in principle do follow each other, but often show some overlap:
1 PRE INVESTIGATION
2 CHEMICAL-ANALYTICAL INVESTIGATION
n.b.
In fact, the above indicated methods are old fashoned. Many chemica reaction were executed in labs with test tubes, etcetera etcetera. But nowadays this kind of research is fully automatic with modern apparatus.
However, for good understanding of the underlaying research reactions, you should (must) have a minimum of knowledge.