Books
Undergraduate Texts on Analytical Chemistry Analytical Chemistry. 3rd ed. Gary D. Christian, xvi + 634 pages. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 605 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016. 1980. $21.95
Reviewed by H. F. Walton, Department of Chemistry, University of Colorado, Box 215, Boulder, Colo. 80309 From time to time our academic colleagues ask us, "What is analytical chemistry?" The author of this book asks this question on page 1, and proceeds to answer it in a comprehensive fashion through 23 chapters and 6 appendixes. The result is a book that I gladly recommend, not only to skeptical faculty members, but to entering graduate students in analytical chemistry who may never have had a full undergraduate course in the field, or who need to refresh their memory on basic concepts. The book is written for undergraduates, and has more than enough material for a year-long course. A good balance is held between chemistry and instruments, basic theory and practical manipulation. It is nice to see in Chapter 3, "Basic Tools of Analytical Chemistry," that syringes and microliter pipets of various kinds are described along with classical volumetric glassware, and that, later on, there is a chapter on automation that includes autoanalyzers, centrifugal analyzers and microprocessors. There is an adequate, workmanlike treatment of a topic so many students never grasp: ionic equilibria in solution. Each chapter has a set of questions and numerical problems, and most have laboratory experiments with directions that are sufficient but not minutely detailed. "Real-life" materials are frequently the subjects for analysis, and there is a leaning toward biological and pharmaceutical "unknowns." Clinical and environmental chemistry themes run through the book, and there are chapters on clinical chemistry and drug analysis. It is incumbent on a reviewer to find some faults, and if he can find none, at least to register some "pet peeves." The treatment of electrode potentials and reversible cells I feel is rather stilted. Should the terms "anode" and "cathode" be applied under conditions of thermodynamic reversibility? Do they confuse or clarify? The Nernst
equation for electrode potentials is invariably written with a minus sign before the log term, even though everybody knows that —log(l/something) = +log(something). Why write the potential of the silver electrode, for example, as - R T / F ln(l/[Ag+])? A petty point, to be sure, but I have known too many graduate students to flounder over simple problems because they try to remember half-forgotten formulas instead of understanding what goes on. The treatment of chromatography is a bit weak. Band broadening is understood so much more easily in terms of random molecular motion and the Gauss error curve than by "the matchbox model of chromatographic separation." Two experiments on liquid chromatography are included, one of which is an old standby, the analysis of analgesic drug tablets; a pellicular anion exchanger is used in this experiment, instead of the more common and more useful octadecyl bonded silica. Nevertheless, the questions at the end of the chromatography chapter are excellent, as is true of all the chapters. The book is interesting, up-todate, and covers the expanding field of analytical chemistry remarkably well. NMR Spectroscopy: An Introduction. H. Giinther. Translated by R. W. Gleason. xiv + 436 pages. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 605 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016. 1980. $62
Reviewed by Robert B. Bates, Department of Chemistry, University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz. 85721 The translated and updated version of this German text is intended to serve as an introductory text for the chemistry student. The emphasis is on X H NMR, with one chapter devoted to 13 C and 19 F NMR. A little theory is presented early, but the bulk is properly left to a later chapter to avoid overwhelming the student at the outset. The chapter on chemical shifts and coupling constants is supplemented by tables in the appendix. There are excellent whole chapters devoted to the influence of molecular symmetry on spectra, the analysis of spin-spin systems (through ABX and including several 4-spin cases), ex-
change processes, and experimental aspects. Topics added or expanded in this edition include Fourier transform techniques, Overhauser effects, CIDNP, and NMR spectra of solids. There are only a few problems (none with 13 C or 19 F NMR) involving deduction of the structure from the spectrum; this skill must be polished elsewhere. One of the strongest features, however, is the many problems that test the ability of the student to apply many of the equations of NMR spectroscopy to practical examples, e.g., in the extraction of shifts and coupling constants from spectra and in the quantitative analysis of mixtures. Overall, the book provides a very attractive presentation of introductory NMR spectroscopy, with excellent spectral reproductions and other illustrations (the second color—red—adds clarity, but on a few pages is not well aligned with the black). It offers a considerably more thorough introduction to XH NMR spectroscopy than other introductory texts, but its much higher price and more limited scope will probably keep it from being as widely used by students. Silverstein, Bassler & Morrill goes much less deeply into ' N M R spectra, but includes other important spectral techniques (MS, IR, UV), has many more structure-from-spectra problems, and has better 1 H chemical shift tables. Abraham & Loftus in paperback costs one-fourth as much, covers essentially the same topics as Giinther though in less depth, and has 25 1 H- 1 3 C structure-from-spectra problems.
Books Received Organic Electronic Spectral Data, Vol. 16. John P. Phillips, Dallas Bates, Henry Feuer, and B. S. Thyagarajan, Eds. xiii + 1126. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 605 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016. 1980. $90 Fiber Diffraction Methods. ACS Symposium Series 141. Alfred D. French and KennCorwin H. Gardner, Eds. ix + 518 pages. American Chemical Society, 1155 16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036 1980. $35.50
ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 53, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 1981 • 323 A
