book reviews
James W. Beotty and Richard G. Seornehorn, Ripon College, University Press of America, Washington, D.C. v + 246 pp. 13.5 X 21.5 cm. $8.75. The authors produced this h w k for their second semester, second year course entitled: Reaction Kinetics and the Mechanism of Reactions. The material is more fully developed and assumes less background than the kinetics chapters of most physical chemistry texts but is more extensive than that given in general chemistry texts. Each of the 11 chapters starts with a brief introduction stating the goal of the chapter and ends with a succinct summary. Following fairly standard chapters on integration of rate laws and the relationship between rate law and mechanism is a chapter on reaction rate theories which is written for students who have had neither thermodynamics nor statistical mechanics, hut plunges right into the subject. Catalysis, Enzyme Kinetics and Photochemistry are each the subject of ehapters. There are 159 chapter end problems, many involving considerable discussion. Answers to only 17 problems are given in the appendix. A list of manyof the moreadvanced kinetics texts is included. The hook is produced by offset and has soft covers. The numerous fieures and olots are not~orofessionallvdraw
prove inconvenient to the student. This bwk would be useful as supplemental reading for the general chemistry student who wishes t o go beyond the general chemistry text or to the physical chemistrystudent who needs to supplement his physical chemistry text.
thermodynamics, kinetics, and process dynamics. The entire text is written from the viewpoint of a practicing engineer, and the first chapter (entitled "What Chemical Engineers Sometimes Do For A Living") is a n excellent introduction for a student who is wondering what the field is all about. The text is divided into four large sections stressing engineering problem analysis, material balances, energy balances, and typical case studies. For classes of minimal background the first three sections should be covered entirely during the course of one semester ar twoquarters, but the text has been structured to allow the omission of certain introductory chapters if the student's preparation is sufficient. Basic engineering calculations are reviewed, and the student is led quickly into processes and process variables, with the accompanying data analysis. Material balances are examined, with both single-phase and multi-phase systems being covered. Energy balances (based on reactive and non-reactive processes) are covered with a thorough thermodynamic foundation, and an introduction is made to transient processes. r puinri in this 'l'hrre area n u m l ~ oistnmr: [err u , h ~ r hmakr it an crcdlpnt chui
