Books and Software

Mixed Bag of Particles

Particle Size Distributions III Edited by Theodore Provder Oxford University Press 198 Madison Ave. New York, NY 10016 1998, 368 pp, $125

This reviewer has long felt that the books in the ACS Symposium Series have been "mixed bags". This book is no exception. Like many of its companion volumes, it suffers from poor editing and the inclusion of irrelevant contributions. The title of the book is Particlleize Distributions III, yet 30% of the contributions do not even dis­cuss the subject. The contributions span a broad range of quality—from exceptional to rejectable. Noticeably absent are any papers dealing with aerosol particles.

Many of the book's contributions con­tain references to the previous symposium proceedings on the same topic, Particll Size Distributions II, ana other papers pub­lished before 1991—at least a full seven years earlier. One would hope that there have been improvements since then. Refer­ences to unpublished symposium proceed­ings, abstracts of contributed (read, not refereed) papers at professional meetings, and inaccessible company or private re­ports are of little use to the reader.

The book presents a dichotomy of ap­proaches by which a particle size distribu­tion may be obtained: from measurements made on fractionated samples and from measurements made on unfractionated samples. Obtaining the size distribution from unfractionated samples generally in­

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 two monodisperse contributions. In con­trast, the several articles showing the appli­cation of fractionation procedures (CHDF and FFF, for the most part) before sizing confirm the significance and validity of this technique for extracting a meaningful and valid distribution

This book contains some other minor flaws that detract from its intended integra­tion. It is replete with examples of poor editing, including the frequent use of the archaic term "micron" in many of the con­tributions. Reference styles are quite varied and inconsistent, even within a single con­tribution. Some illustrations are of poor quality, and figure caption styles are not consistent. The index itself is a cry for help. Some of the topics indexed require two full lines. There is little or no integration of the book's sections, and every author seems to have his or her own index. The layout of the index seems to have no plan or organization.

Despite the book's general flaws, it's an interesting and fun read. It might be pur­chased by scientists involved with the mea­surement and characterization of particles in solution. Some of the articles provide excellent descriptions of measurement techniques and their associated instrumen­tation. Many of the articles contain interest­ing raw data and are well worth skimming. The book contains some good reviews on to the methods proposed, some interesting papers on particle aggregation and modifi­cation, and good introductions to electro-acoustic techniques. The commercial im­plementation of phase analysis light scat­

tering is well described, as are some newer developments with the Honeywell Micro-trac 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 39 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-

552 A Analytical Chemistry News & Features, August 1, 1999