Chemical Education Today
Book & Media Reviews Inorganic Chemistry by Gary Wulfsberg University Science Books: Sausalito, CA, 2000. xix + 978 pp. Figures and tables. ISBN 1-891389-01-7. $88.00. reviewed by Martin N. Ackermann
Many teachers of inorganic chemistry are likely to have some familiarity with Principles of Descriptive Inorganic Chemistry by Gary Wulfsberg (reviewed in J. Chem. Educ. 1988, 65, A169), which is intended for an introductory inorganic course. PDIC first appeared in 1987 and is still in print. Wulfsberg’s new effort, Inorganic Chemistry, is intended for the advanced inorganic course and incorporates all the material from PDIC and a great deal more. The text is divided into main two parts. Part I consists of eight chapters, all but one drawing extensively from PDIC but with new or expanded coverage. The first chapter treats atomic structure and periodic trends of atoms and ions. Chapters 2–5 emphasize acid–base concepts and their use in organizing and understanding a large amount of chemistry. Lattice energy and solubility trends also appear here. The use of predominance diagrams, which show the predominant form of an element as a function of pH, for analysis of Brønsted acid–base reactions and solubility was new to me and looks to be an effective approach. Trends in coordination equilibria are organized around hard and soft acid–base theory. HSAB theory then is employed extensively in the rest of the text. Chapter 6, on oxidation–reduction, uses both predominance diagrams, now based on potential, and Pourbaix diagrams but not Latimer diagrams. Chapter 7 develops thermochemical analyses of reactivity trends, and Chapter 8 introduces crystal and ligand field theories and their applications. The nine chapters in Part II deal with symmetry and group theory; molecular orbital theory; organometallic chemistry of d-block elements; the elements and their physical properties; the oxides of the elements; the halides, nitrides, and sulfides of the elements; hydrides, alkyls, and aryls; inorganic reaction mechanisms; and advanced topics, including excited electronic states, photochemistry, and activated molecules. The treatment of group theory takes students only to the level of understanding what an irreducible representation means. Generating reducible representations and extracting the irreducible representations is not included. This limits the molecular orbital analysis of complex molecules to recognizing ligand and orbital patterns in order to interpret or create molecular orbital energy level diagrams. The author envisages that an advanced course would go quickly or selectively through Part I and then focus on Part II. This is a workable approach, but surely will be demanding of students. Unless they have had a prior course in inorganic chemistry, most of what is in Part I will be new to them. Even with a prior inorganic course, the novel approach taken in many of the chapters is almost certain to be quite different from what students have previously seen and will require extra time to cover. Anyone adopting Inorganic Chemistry will need 1412
to give careful consideration to how to integrate what they use from Part I and Part II. Another option is to use this text for both the introductory and the advanced inorganic courses in a curriculum that includes both. Part I, which does not require the use of molecular orbital theory, and selected portions of Part II would be suitable for the introductory course. However, the concepts of hybridization and resonance may need additional support if students have not had an organic course, since this background is assumed. The remainder of the text could then be used later in an advanced course. Because of the greater coverage and somewhat higher level of Inorganic Chemistry, this approach would be more challenging for students than using PDIC in the introductory course but would have the advantage of requiring the purchase of only one text. Inorganic Chemistry is well written and generally easy to follow. I found very few errors and most are minor and easily detectable. A significant strength is the frequent use of figures and graphs to examine data, revealing correlations that will enable students to make reasonable predictions or to explain phenomena. Another attractive feature is the extent to which the author relates inorganic chemistry to other areas. Indeed, this is an underlying theme with all but three of the chapters having subtitles relating to specific areas, for example “Trends in Coordination Equilibria—With Applications to Biochemistry, Environmental Chemistry, Geochemistry, and Medicinal Chemistry”. This feature will undoubtedly heighten the interest of many students but the result is a text that is longer, larger, and heavier than those with which it is intended to compete. In addition to worked examples within chapters, there are numerous exercises (typically 50–80) at the end of each, which range from straightforward to thought provoking. Answers to about one-fourth of these exercises are provided. A statement of study objectives also appears at the end of each chapter. About 40 references per chapter take students to the original literature or other sources. There are numerous tables of data throughout and inside the front and back covers. There are two appendixes, one of character tables and the other with seven discovery-based experiments. All but one of the experiments are from PDIC and are designed to be done before engaging the material in some of the chapters in Part I. The index of 10 pages is reasonably detailed and useful but a formula index would be a valuable addition. Inorganic Chemistry is an interesting new option for teachers of advanced inorganic courses and offers the possibility of serving an introductory course as well. Since PDIC first appeared, more authors have adopted the approach of developing descriptive inorganic chemistry around common principles instead of a group-by-group treatment, which makes this text less of a departure from the traditional than PDIC was. Still, Wulfsberg offers an original and engaging perspective on inorganic chemistry. Even if this text is not adopted for a course, it deserves a place on the shelf of every teacher of inorganic chemistry, where it will be a valuable resource. Martin Ackermann teaches chemistry at Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH 44074;
[email protected].
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 77 No. 11 November 2000 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
