| A review from Journal
of Chemical Education, 76, p. 1489, (1999) Environmental Chemical Analysis B.B. Kebbekus and S. Mitra. Thomson Science: London, 1998. xiv + 330 pp. ISBN 0-751 4-0456-X, Paper, £25.00 (ca. $40.75). |
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| This text helps to fill a void in the
market, as there are relatively few undergraduate instrumental analysis texts designed
specifically for the expanding population of environmental science students. R. N.
Reeve’s introductory, open-learning Environmental Analysis (Wiley, 1994) is
one of the few, and it is aimed at a lower level and is less appropriate for traditional
classroom study. Kebbekus and Mitra’s book appears to be an update of I. Marr and M. Cresser’s excellent 1983 text by the same name (and also published under the Chapman and Hall imprint). It assumes no background in instrumental methods of analysis but it does depend upon a good general chemistry background in kinetic and equilibrium calculations and the standard laboratory techniques found in a classical introduction to analytical chemistry. The slant taken by the authors is aimed more toward engineers, not only in the choice of topics, but also in how they are presented. For example, the statistical significance tests presented follow an engineering format rather than the standard used in analytical chemistry. This approach does not detract from the book’s clarity The writing style is concise and the book is generally well written. The earlier text, which has become somewhat of a dassic, took the unusual step of teaching the instruments in the context of their environmental application. It was divided into sections on the "atmosphere" the "hydrosphere", the "lithosphere". and the "biosphere". This text takes a similar approach in the second half, with chapters on methods for air, water, and solid samples. Users who intend to use the book as a text instead of a reference will appreciate the addition of chapters in the first half of the book on spectroscopic, chromatographic, and mass spectrometric methods. The six chapters in these two parts of the book along with four chapters scattered throughout on environmental measurements, sampling, sample preparation, and quality assurance make a nice package overall, although I might personally prefer a chapter on environmental chemometrics as well. Most of the major instrumental methods actively employed in environmental analysis are treated either in the theoretical chapters or in the later application chapters. These include introductions to UV-vis, FTIR, SFC, HPLC, IC (but not CE), GC, GC-MS, ISEs, anodic stripping, FAA, GFAA, XRF, ICP, ICP-MS, and even two pages on the basics of immunoassays. Although this text provides an update of the earlier book, its greatest failing is a particular strength of the first text: it fails to provide any detailed references within the text, relying on an average of five generic "suggested readings" at the end of each chapter.
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Even tables such as "Some US
drinking water quality standards" give no references, setting a bad example for
students who have to write research papers of their own. As it also does not provide the
detailed procedures or fine-quality figures that were available in the earlier text, it is
nor worth as much as a reference book or for library acquisitions. In the first book the
detailed procedures served as a "lab manual within the text" and this increased
its pedagogic value tremendously. Still, this text does make use of generalized procedures
to step through many of the standard methods encountered by practicing environmental
scientists, and the tables are in most cases superior to those in similar texts, lacking
only the references to make them as useful as they might be. A second weakness of note comes from the organization. Having two different parts of the book covering material that relates to each of the instrumental methods means that it is nor always clear where the reader should go to find information that relates to a particular method. For example, specifics on sampling equipment for water and soils appear in the chapter on sampling, but for air they appear in the applications section. Similarly, the sample preparation chapter would make more logical sense if it appeared before the instrumental methods that make use of it, and the F-test should be discussed before it is called upon to tell whether two populations have the same variance. The various discussions rarely refer the reader to related material located in other parts of the text, so occasionally one is left wondering about the lack of coverage. However, in the end the authors do introduce all the topics fairly well, and the text seems to have a good index. In summary, this text provides a very readable introduction to instrumental environmental analysis that is appropriate for a one-semester course designed for advanced undergraduate environmental engineering and environmental science students. If the instructor is careful to read the text beforehand so as to guide the students appropriately, supplying additional references when experimental work is to he undertaken, it should also work satisfactorily in courses that have a laboratory component.
(Authors' note: |
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