NEW BOOKS trace analysis. The book is recom mended to all analytical chemists.
Gas in a Flask An increasing number of our customers are finding glass flasks the most convenient packaging for research experiments and other projects requiring the introduction of a small amount of gas into a system. Matheson can supply almost any gas in a borosilicate one-liter glass flask. (Exceptions are light sensitive gases and fluorine compounds.) T h e Matheson Catalog lists flask prices for Research Grade Gases. For information on other gases in glass flasks, phone or write the nearest Matheson Plant.
MATHESON P. O. Box 85, East Rutherford, New JerseyPlants in East Rutherford, N.J.; Joliet, 111.; La Porte, Texas,· Morrow, Ga.; Newark, Calif/ Matheson of Canada, Whitby, Ont. Circle No. 124 on Readers' Service Card 78 A
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ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
Photochemistry. Jack G. Calvert, James N. Pitts, Jr. xvii + 899 pages. Interscience Publishers, 60S Third Ave., New York, Ν. Y. 10016. 1966. $19.50. Reviewed by H. H. Richtol, De partment of Chemistry, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N. J. The time is certainly ripe for new books to appear on photochemistry, as is pointed out by the authors in the preface. This book is meant to serve as both a current textbook and a reference source for modern photochemistry, and succeeds admirably on both counts. After a brief introductory chapter which will bo helpful to senior under graduate and beginning graduate stu dents, the next two chapters deal with the interaction of light with atoms and simple molecules. These two chapters begin with a survey of spectroscopy and then relate this area to primary photophysical processes, such as fluores cence, phosphorescence, energy transfer, etc. The primary photophysi cal processes are presented well in these chapters. A good introductorj' survey to mercury-photosensitized reactions is contained in the second chapter, and is documented nicely with diagrams and clear photochemical equations. I found chapter 4 to be a particularly enjoyable chapter. It covers the pri mary photophysical processes of poly atomic molecules, and in the brief span of about HO pages, this chapter intro duces one to the subject matter that is perhaps at the heart of current research in organic photochemistry. Students as well as more experienced research work ers will find this coverage of the mul titude of possible excited state processes to be particularly helpful. Chapter 5 catalogs a large number of photochemical reactions according to their chromophoric groups. For each molecule surveyed, chemical equations are given as well as quantum yields and experimental conditions. The huge amount of photochemical information in this chapter is necessarily in abbrevi ated form, yet is concise and well docu mented. I strongly suspect that this chapter will be used more often for its reference material than any other chap ter in the book. Chapter 6 should be helpful to begin ning students in photochemistry. It deals with the experimental and kinetic information that one must obtain in order to determine the mechanism of a photochemical reaction. The authors indicate that the techniques discussed in this chapter do not represent the final word, but the need for a new and
unique experiment always exists. Finally, the last chapter is concerned with the experimental tools of photo chemistry. An excellent exposition is given on light sources, monochromators, filters, optics, and actinometers. The practical nature of this chapter should make it highly popular, and will fre quently be referred to by young re searchers. The book appears to bo remarkably free of printing errors (I found only three) and the tables and figures are quite clear. Professors Calvert and Pitts obviously write with authority, and the subject matter chosen for em phasis and de-emphasis could not have been arrived at lightly. As a chemist, I invariably agreed with the authors' choice of subject matter. Topics on photobiology, photochemistry of the solid state, etc., were understandably given limited coverage. The book is well documented throughout, and con tains over 1600 references. A special feature which will aid in the use of the book as a text are the problems at the end of most of the chapters. This book is a welcome addition to the area of photochemistry, and will prove useful to people in allied fields as well. Atomic
Absorption
Spectroscopy.
James W. Robinson, xi -f- S04 pages. Marcel Dekker, Inc., 95 Madison Ave., New York, Ν. Υ. 10016. 1966. $9.75. Reviewed by R. Lockyer, Hilger ù- Watts, Ltd., 98 St. Paneras Way, Camden Rd., London, N. W. 1, England. In his preface, the author draws attention to the difficulty experienced in covering completely a subject, such as atomic absorption, in which fresh work is continually appearing. He is, I think, to be congratulated in achieving a very up-to-the-minute account. Attention is rightly focussed on basic principles, but it is a pity that Chapter 2, which deals with equipment, does appear to suffer from oversimplifications, no doubt imposed by the need for brevity. For example (p. 10) the use of a flame as a source of free atoms is hardly to be attributed to a "blind spot." Russel, Shclton, and Walsh in their original paper (1957) pointed out that " . . . this problem of complete atomisation seems the outstanding problem . . . ," but the fact is that in spite of all the efforts to find an effective substitute, the flame is still the most generally useful atomiser. Although emissive electrodes (p. 21) are coated with alkaline earth carbonates during manufacture, these are not of course the actual emitters as they re-
