Books
Practical Insights into Packed Column SFC tant for method development. Chapter 6 builds on this information and discusses how one would choose the appropriate mobile or stationary phases for various compound classes. These chapters lay the groundwork for a novice to gain an understanding of the process for method development and optimization. In my opinion, the most significant contribution this book makes to the Packed Column SFC field comes in Chapter 7. This chapter preT. A. Berger sents a thorough and systematic method Royal Society of Chemistry development regimen in the most complete Turpin Distribution Services, Ltd. and easy-to-understand method developBlackhorse Road, Letchworth ment guide for PSFC that I have seen. Herts SG6 1HN, United Kingdom The five remaining chapters deal with 1995, 251 pp.. $85 applications of PSFC; pharmaceutical, chiral, agricultural, petroleum, and miscellaneous applications are presented. These This book will be useful for anyone interchapters act as an effective summary that ested in evaluating packed column SFC (PSFC) and looking for a book that gives a illustrates the potential of PSFC as a technique. The book has much useful inforgood theoretical background, as well as many practical insights into this technique. mation, and the subject index is adequate. The author is a well-known authority on the As practical as this book is, there are subject, and he uses his years of experience some things I did not like about it. I found to make clear the advantages and disadvan- that the author repeated himself in many tages of PSFC. It was refreshing to have an places. There were several places where author give the good and bad aspects of an acronyms were not adequately defined. In analytical technique. some cases, references were given in the list at the end of the chapter that were not The first chapter puts PSFC into percited in the text. spective with other separation techniques. A great deal of time is spent comparing the I also became aware of inaccuracies merits of each separation technique. Next, in some of the references because they the author continues to compare and coninvolved work done by some of my cotrast PSFC with other techniques in a disworkers. For instance, the development cussion of hardware. This chapter provides of the frit restrictor was given a referseveral practical points for a new practitioence to Lee (p. 35 and 225). In actuality, ner to remember. For instance, ,i stresses it was Cortes who developed the restricthe importance of having the C0 2 source tor, and it is the subject of a U.S. and close to the instrument, and it includes a European Patent (U.S. Patent 4,793,920 discussion of gas purity. and/. HighResolut. Chromatogr. 1.198 Chapters 3 and 4 cover important theo- 10, 446-48). retical concepts dealing with the mobile I found figures that were inadequately and stationary phases used in PSFC. labeled, many showing chromatograms Chapter 5 deals with the effect of instruwithout any conditions listed. It was somemental parameters on chromatographic what disturbing that so little was menperformance, which is obviously importioned of simulated distillation and that 556 A
Analytical Chemistry News & Features, September 1, 1996
nothing was mentioned about the use of packed capillaries for petroleum applications. These oversights are inevitable as one tries to write a book, and I would say the faults are minor. However, they give the impression that the book was not well reviewed. My biggest complaint about the book concerns some of the references. Although they seem to be as up-to-date as possible for a book of this nature, many of the references may be inaccessible for most scientists. For example, Chapter 8, regarding pharmaceutical applications, cites 57 references. Twelve of those references, or 21%, come from various authors' unpublished works, Hewlett-Packard Application Notes, personal communications, or Hewlett-Packard Slide Sets. In the final chapter, the author references four "outof-print" Hewlett-Packard Application Notes which makes it nearly impossible for someone to obtain information Despite these flaws, I believe that the book contains good information, and the guide to method development given in Chapter 7 makes the book valuable enough that all chromatographers practicing or wanting to practice PSFC should have it in their libraries. Reviewed by Bruce E. Richter, Dionex Corporation BOOKS RECEIVED Immunoassays for Residue Analysis Ross C. Beier and Larry H. Stanker, Eds. American Chemical Society 1155 16thSt.. N.W. Washington, DC 20036 1996, 528 pp., $129.95
This book, divided into seven sections, focuses on the basic concepts of immuno-
