|
|
Exploring traditional, innovative, and revolutionary issues in the minerals,
metals, and materials fields. |
VISIT THE
JOM COVER GALLERY
JOM HOME PAGE
TABLES OF CONTENTS
HTML-ENHANCED ARTICLES
MATERIAL MATTERS
MATERIALS RESOURCE
CENTER
JOM TECHNICAL DIRECTORY
TMS WEBCAST HOME
PROFESSIONAL PREFACE
SUBJECT INDEXES
TECHNICAL EMPHASIS
CALENDAR
AUTHOR'S KIT
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY/
ABSTRACT SUBMISSION FORM
BOOK REVIEWS
ADVERTISING INFORMATION
RESERVE A CLASSIFIED
SUBSCRIPTIONS
SINGLE ISSUE PURCHASES
LETTER TO EDITOR
|
|
03/4/2008 -
Combinatorial and High-Throughput Discovery and Optimization of Catalysts and Materials (2007)
by Radislav A. Potyrailo and Wilhelm F. Maier, editors
ISBN 0-8493-3669-4. CRC Press/Taylor and Francis Group, Boca Raton, Florida. 2007. Hardcover. 473 pages. $199.95.
Combinatorial and High-Throughput Discovery and Optimization of Catalysts and Materials is a good descriptive, albeit long, title for this nifty book being reviewed. Combi will be what the text will be called for short for this review. Combi covers an important topic and one that does not get enough attention: optimization. Optimization is important for a number of reasons including getting a competitive advantage. Indeed one important theme of Combi is that combinatorial techniques can be used for optimization. And as the title implies combinatorial techniques can be used for materials and catalysts optimization and study. Another inference from the title is that high-throughput techniques are linked to combinatorial techniques. In other words, one advantage of the combinatorial approach is high throughput of test results and this leads to optimization of your target research. An example of this is in the design and testing of new glasses. And as is mentioned in Chapter 4, the properties of glasses are tunable by changing the composition of the glasses. Glasses are continuously variable in composition and so a combinatorial approach with many glass compositions leads to creating the best glass.
Using Google, it is easy to find many uses of the combinatorial approach besides those in Combi . These include drug discovery, integrated circuit layout, peptide research, building antibody libraries and decision making. This shows that combinatorial research extends beyond the realm of material science. Combi does draw from a variety of research fields in materials science. These fields are state of the art, commercially relevant and high tech. Examples of this include chapters on numerous catalysts including zeolites, epoxies, dyes, fuel cells, batteries, magnetic storage, ion beam synthesis, thin films, organic light-emitting diodes, photoelectric displays and flat panels. Combi is an edited book with experts doing varied work contributing independent chapters. Combi is richly illustrated, which is very helpful in understanding the technology involved in the combinatorial approach. Indeed various approaches to combinatorial work are shown including the split and pool method.
Materials scientists are getting cleverer as shown in Combi . Not only are they doing eloquent experiments with sophisticated apparatus but they are designing systems to do these experiments in an efficient and in some cases automated manner. A point made in Combi and an important point is that it is considerably better and more difficult to design a system to test and produce solutions than to just come up with a new material. For example, it is better to a have system to design and experiment with phosphors than to merely produce one new phosphor.
One strong point of a good science book is that it makes a lot of strong points. Or to put it another way there are a lot of nuggets of wisdom in a good book. In this respect Combi does not disappoint. A few quotations from Combi will be given to show this: “Formulated, additive-based polymeric materials are common in our everyday lives.” “The use of high throughput screening technology has proven invaluable in exploring large chemical spaces.” “Heat treatment is a critical unit operation that is investigated repeatedly throughout the steps of a material commercialization.” As just shown the language of Combi and the subject matter is clear and understandable for the material scientist or other person with a college level physical science background.
To conclude, our technological future is bright thanks to combinatorial techniques as illustrated in Combi.
For more on Combinatorial and High-Throughput Discovery and Optimization of Catalysts and Materials, visit the CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Group web site. |
| | The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society's JOM Book Review Program pages are
maintained with News Update 1.1 |
|
|
