09/1/2004 -
Topics in Stereochemistry, Volume 24: Materials--Chirality (2003)
edited by Mark M. Green, R.J.M. Nolte, and E.W. Meijer
ISBN 0-471-05497-6. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. 2003. Hardcover. 607 pages. $175.
Recognizing the critical need for a handy reference work that deals with the most recent advancement in material science chemistry (i.e., chirality) for practicing chemists of various related fields, the editors have developed a useful volume on topics in stereochemistry for materials. This volume demonstrates the continuing evolution of the idea of chirality as a material characteristic and returns us to the world of materials, to a domain beyond the chiral properties of the individual molecules. This is definitely a reference book, and most researchers are likely to use it as a reference work and read only selected topics. However, when one sees the depth and explanation of the topics covered, one is definitely tempted to read the book from cover to cover. This book encourages readers to learn new insights, new applications, and new principles and theories of materials’ structural arrangements.
This volume provides a detailed description of the historical development of the subject. It represents a unified view of chirality in fields where macromolecules play a role. The introduction and conclusion in every chapter reinforce this view. The most important feature of the volume is that it encourages us to learn new things in macromolecular stereochemistry. It also offers a detailed subject index, cumulative authors and title index (Vol. 1–24), and comprehensive literature references for each chapter. This is the first recent volume in the field of material chirality with in-depth coverage of stereochemistry of liquid crystals. With good quality paper and printing, this book is a hardbound asset for any institutional and individual library.
The volume is assembled into nine independent chapters starting with an informative preface. Chapters 1, 2, and 4 are related to polymer stereochemistry. Chapter 5 addresses biomacromolecule’s stereochemistry. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 cover the chirality in liquid-crystal materials. Chapters 3 and 9 describe the chirality of materials (polysilanes) having chiral recognition ability and a second-order non-linear optics technique for the study of chirality, respectively.
With the masterful knowledge of authors and editors, this volume describes the historical and modern aspects of stereo regular olefin polymerization, the field raised by the first use of the Ziegler-Natta catalyst, and how polymer crystallinity yielded insight in the Ziegler-Natta polymerization. Also discussed are the conformation, packing, and disorder in polymer crystals. Chapter 5 is an important guide for those working on protein and other biomacromolecules’ crystallography and structure determination. The key question discussed throughout the chapter is: Why do some molecules form helical aggregates while other molecules do not? The authors answer with molecular chirality, and discusses the chiral molecular self assembly into helical aggregates with their chiral models, which include amphiphiles of carbohydrate, peptide, phospholipids, nucleotides, and steroid and Gemini surfactants. The number of building blocks for supramolecular self-assembly is unlimited. In this regard, Brunveld et al. describe the studies on disk-shaped molecules, which are programmed to stack in helical fashion. For the study of the relationship between the functional liquid crystalline properties and chirality expression, they described the development of chiral discotic molecules which, upon self assembly, are able to pass on their molecular information. Walba, a pioneering contributor in ferroelectric liquid crystals, provides a key development in the field and leads us to discovery of the directed design of chiral ferroelectric banana phase. This volume ends with the second-order linear optical techniques useful for the study of material chirality so as to establish the clear relationship among molecular structure, chirality, and nonlinearity to exploit the properties of chiral materials in optics and photonics.
In summary, this volume represents a well-balanced assembly of research topics from which readers can gain valuable information. It describes significant contributions of authors and focuses on some challenging questions in most chapters. However, the editors’ and authors’ biographies would be a nice addition. Professionals from material science, polymers science, biophysics, physics, chemistry, and bioscience will find this volume of particular benefit. The regular reader of this series will find the exciting world of macromolecular stereochemistry. Thus, Topics in Stereochemistry can be recommended to anyone wishing to explore an area of stereochemistry in any subject.
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