Analyzing water?
Put Hach reagents to the test. There are nearly 400 quality Hach reagents available to you. Everything from acetic acid to zinc test reagent. Most Hach formulations are based on Stand ard Methods. They're packaged in convenient premeasured powder pillows or bottles for maximum s t a b i l i t y and minimum dosage waste. Here are five of the most popular Hach reagents: • Formula 2533™ Nitrification Inhibitor powder for BOD testing. Gives more accu rate evaluation of the effectiveness of waste water treatment processes and a way of calculating potential nitrogenous oxygen demand in samples. • New FerroZine® iron analysis reagent. It's fast becoming the new standard in trace analysis for ultrahigh purity water. Ferro Zine® offers the highest test sensitivity available today. • PAO for dissolved oxygen testing. A time proven successor to sodium thiosulfate so lution. PAO gives same accuracy with maxi mum stability. Eliminates the nuisance of checking and restandardizing titrating solu tion or making adjustment calculations to compensate for thiosulfate deterioration. • New Formula 2589™ Fluoride Adjustment Buffer powder. Ideal for fluoride electrode determinations. One powder pillow dosage buffers samples, controls ionic strength and frees fluoride in solution from interfering substances without diluting the sample. • Dithizone powder pillows. A breakthrough in colorimetric lead analysis. Hach's new procedure provides a highly sensitive test with no common metal interferences. Write for more information today.
H A C H CHEMICAL COMPANY P.O. Box 907-Ames, Iowa 50010 U.S.A. Phone:515-232-2533 ' HACH CHEMCALCa TWX: 910-520-1158 MMVERSARY And: Hach Europe Namur, Belgium
Books
source book nor the progressive con struction of logical result featured in a valuable text. It approaches the for mer role more closely. About one third of the book is de voted to the theoretical fundamentals of electrode kinetics. This discussion deals almost entirely with the usual marriage between transition-state theory and mass-action dynamics. Except for a brief examination of electrode processes at semiconductor electrodes, more recent treatments, which relate electrodics to the struc tures of solids, are merely referenced. Almost half of the volume reviews the results of kinetic studies on real systems. Three gas electrodes—hy drogen, oxygen, and chlorine—are treated in detail, and there is an ex tensive discussion of metal deposi tion. These sections, which seem eas ily the best in the book, may be espe cially useful to Western scientists be cause of the fairly extensive coverage of Soviet and Eastern European liter ature. More cursory treatments of ki netics at redox electrodes and at elec trodes immersed in molten salts are also included, but there is no exami nation of organic systems. The very fundamentals of electrode interfaces are not covered in the text proper; instead they are reviewed briefly in an appendix. One, there fore, cannot expect to comprehend fully the material presented anywhere in the volume without considerable foreknowledge, and this arrangement most clearly precludes the book's use as a teaching text. Experimental techniques have been declared beyond the scope of the ef fort, but doing so has introduced a certain awkwardness into the review of specific electrochemical systems, because advance understanding is presumed only for the long-estab lished steady-state and slow-transient methods. To this reviewer, at least, results from more sophisticated (and more recent) experimentation, espe cially ac impedance measurements, seem to have been slighted. The style of presentation is accu rate in that only a few outright errors are apparent; yet, it is often impre
CIRCLE 9 3 O N READER SERVICE CARD
1122 A · ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 45, NO. 13, NOVEMBER
1973
cise in that what is written is not ex actly what is meant. A fairly repre sentative example appears on page 99, where the reader finds that, "Convection can be eliminated by stirring, which if strong enough, may lead to homogeneity of the solution up to the outer boundary of the diffu sion layer. " Much of this probably can be ascribed to the translation, but whatever the source, it renders comprehension quite formidable in places. Another criticism that ought to be made pertains to the author's treat ment of J. A. V. Butler's early contri butions to this field. Professor ErdeyGruz emphasizes correctly the impor tance of his 1930 paper with Volmer, which first fully formulated many still current kinetic ideas. Nevertheless, Butler introduced the kinetics of ac tivated processes to electrodics at least six years earlier; yet, his name has been omitted in the historical accounts contained here. Even though this book may provide useful reviews for specialists studying certain specific electrode processes, it will have a difficult time attaining full success. Serious shortcomings do not seem to compromise it nearly so much as the quality of the competi tion. Among monographs, Vetter's "Electrochemical Kinetics" is much deeper, more extensive, and even though it is now several years old, is more oriented toward contemporary experimental capabilities. Among textbooks, Volume II of Bockris and Reddy's "Electrochemistry" is vastly broader and clearer. This book offers very little that is not covered in ei ther of these alternatives; hence, nei ther individuals nor institutions will find its purchase easily justified.
New Books Environmental Chemistry. Stanley E. Manahan. ν + 393 pages. Willard Grant Press, Inc., 20 Newbury St., Boston, Mass. 02116. 1972. $10 (Paperbound, $6.95)
This book is based on an interme diate level environmental chemistry course taught by the author. There fore, it is primarily a textbook, but the author hopes that it will be useful as a general reference book in the area. A background in general, plus some analytical and organic, chemis try is assumed. Nitrogen NMR. M. Witanowski and G. A. Webb, Eds. ix + 403 pages. Plenum Publishing Corp., 227 West 17th St., New York, N.Y. 10011. 1973. $28
Theoretical and experimental as pects of nitrogen NMR, N-14 nuclear quadrupole effects, chemical shifts in
