Chemical Education Today
An Introduction to Industrial Chemistry, 3rd ed. Alan Heaton, Ed. Blackie Academic & Professional, Chapman & Hall: New York, 1996. 413 pp. ISBN 0 7514 0272 9. An Introduction to Industrial Chemistry, 3rd edition, has been perused several times, each time from a different point of view. The publisher notes that this treatise “…provides undergraduate students of chemistry and chemical engineering with an appreciation of the major features of the chemical industry… .” The book comprises twelve Sherlockian monographs by nine authors on various subjects: Introduction (to the chemical industry), Sources of Chemicals, Research and Development,* The World’s Major Chemical Industries, Organizational Structures,* Technological Economics, Chemical Engineering, Energy, Environmental Impact of the Chemical Industry,* Chlor-Alkali Products, Catalysts and Catalysis, and Petrochemicals (*newly added sections). The sections, or chapters, in this text are well written. There have been some efforts to tie these writings together, even though they were written separately. The subjects in each chapter are integrated well but in the space allotted are not treated in depth. Many of the discussions deal with topics that I teach in my first-year college chemistry courses, “Chemical Principles” and “Introduction to Chemistry of Materials”. As these subjects are dealt with in An Introduction to Industrial Chemistry, it seems that the readers must have had some prior chemistry education to permit full understanding of the subjects. Heaton, in the preface, indicates that this text is to be used in conjunction with The Chemical Industry, 2nd edition, edited by Alan Heaton. The latter text is not available to me and perhaps this omission has left my review unduly severe. All chapters but one are written in what we usually
consider the style for survey or overview courses, designed to stimulate the reader (student) into more in-depth study on specific items of interest. With this in mind, and since this is the third edition, I examined the references listed in each chapter and found no references later than 1994. In fact, the chapter on technological economics, which might well be of high interest in today’s society, has no references later than 1982. The chapter referred to earlier, the one titled “Chemical Engineering”, while factually correct, has so many portions of structured and advanced chemical engineering mathematics packed into 71 pages that I imagine this contrast with the rest of the text might dissuade the second-year student. I next approached this review as a student might, trying to find one or two new (to the student) terms that might be deciphered by the authors throughout the text. Early on (p 20) the term “zeolites” is used. There are five later references to these moieties, but the student’s quest for understanding the term is left unsatisfied. Finally, the chapter titled “The World’s Major Chemical Industries” does not truly represent today’s distribution of chemical manufacturing (again, there are no references later than 1982); it does accent the major manufacturers in Great Britain, but minimizes the growth in these industries in the Pacific Rim. There are several omissions, such as Eastman Chemicals Corporation in Tennessee. All in all this is a well written text. Certainly the idea of this type of compendium is well intended. There is room for serious updating as we approach the next century. A student in today’s society, for instance, might ask, “Where does silicon come from, and who manufactures it?” Robert H. Paine Department of Chemistry, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY 14623
Vol. 74 No. 6 June 1997 • Journal of Chemical Education
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