Books and Software: Mixed bag of particles - Analytical Chemistry

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Books and Software

Mixed Bag of Particles volves the selection of a priori distribution forms or requires some heroic attempt to extract a distribution from various measurements of the unfractionated ensemble. The general failure of such techniques has long been recognized in a quantitative sense (even truly monodisperse polystyrene latex spheres yield a distribution breadth). From a qualitative sense, they also often fail as well, as seen by examining a bi-modal distribution formed by mixing Particle Size Distributions III two monodisperse contributions. In conEdited by Theodore Provder trast, the several articles showing the appliOxford University Press cation of fractionation procedures (CHDF 198 Madison Ave. and FFF, for the most part) before sizing New York, NY 10016 confirm the significance and validity of this 1998, 368 pp, $125 technique for extracting a meaningful and valid distribution This reviewer has long felt that the books in the ACS Symposium Series have been This book contains some other minor "mixed bags". This book is no exception. flaws that detract from its intended integraLike many of its companion volumes, it tion. It is replete with examples of poor suffers from poor editing and the inclusion editing, including the frequent use of the of irrelevant contributions. The title of the archaic term "micron" in many of the conbook is Particlleize Distributions III, yet tributions. Reference styles are quite varied 30% of the contributions do not even disand inconsistent, even within a single concuss the subject. The contributions span a tribution. Some illustrations are of poor broad range of quality—from exceptional quality, and figure caption styles are not to rejectable. Noticeably absent are any consistent. The index itself is a cry for help. papers dealing with aerosol particles. Some of the topics indexed require two full lines. There is little or no integration of the Many of the book's contributions conbook's sections, and every author seems to tain references to the previous symposium have his or her own index. The layout of the proceedings on the same topic, Particll Size Distributions II, ana other papers pub- index seems to have no plan or organization. lished before 1991—at least a full seven Despite the book's general flaws, it's an years earlier. One would hope that there interesting and fun read. It might be purhave been improvements since then. Refer- chased by scientists involved with the meaences to unpublished symposium proceedsurement and characterization of particles ings, abstracts of contributed (read, not in solution. Some of the articles provide refereed) papers at professional meetings, excellent descriptions of measurement and inaccessible company or private retechniques and their associated instrumenports are of little use to the reader. tation. Many of the articles contain interesting raw data and are well worth skimming. The book presents a dichotomy of apThe book contains some good reviews on proaches by which a particle size distributo the methods proposed, some interesting tion may be obtained: from measurements papers on particle aggregation and modifimade on fractionated samples and from cation, and good introductions to electromeasurements made on unfractionated acoustic techniques. The commercial imsamples. Obtaining the size distribution plementation of phase analysis light scatfrom unfractionated samples generally in552 A

Analytical Chemistry News & Features, August 1, 1999

tering is well described, as are some newer developments with the Honeywell Microtrac device. A lot of discussion about photon correlation spectroscopy methods and their variants fills many of the articles. Another reason to buy the book is its future scarcity. Unlike scientific articles published in first-class journals, these articles are, for the most part, destined to oblivion, because few copies of ACS Symposium Series books are sold, and few major libraries keep them on hand. Reading many of these contributions is both stimulating and interesting, whether one agrees with them or not. In addition, it is so easy to spot the poor papers that little time need be spent on them. Philip J. Wyatt, Wyatt Technology Corporation

A Complete Lesson on Chromatography

Advances in Chromatography, Volume 3 9 Edited by Phyllis R. Brown and Eli Grushka Marcel Dekker, Inc. 270 Madison Ave. New York, NY 10016 1998, 351 pp, $175

Volume 39 of Advances in nhromatography continues J. Calvin Giddings's tradition of helping to convert the art of chromatogra-