09/6/2005 -
Macromolecules Containing Metal and Metal-Like Elements, Volume 4: Group IVA Polymers (2005)
edited by Alaa S. Abd-El-Aziz, Charles E. Carraher, Jr., Charles U. Pittman, Jr., and Martel Zeldin
ISBN 0-471-68238-1, Wiley-Interscience, Hoboken, New Jersey. 2005. Hardcover. 368 pages. $150.
| REVIEWED BY: | Gary Vardon, OSHA
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Macromolecules Containing Metal and Metal-Like Elements Volume 4: Group IVA Polymers was edited by a distinguished group of professors who did not write all the chapters, but contributed to some of them. Charles E. Carraher Jr. deserves special recognition as a contributing editor. He ably wrote four of the book's 11 chapters.
This fourth volume is up to the usual high standards of the publisher, Wiley Interscience, and contains much of note and interest. If you have any interest in state-of-the-art polymers, then this is the book for you. This volume is full of intriguing polymer descriptions. As implied by the title, polymers—which include the Group IV elements carbon, silicon, germanium, tin, and lead—form the subject matter of this book. Describing the properties and synthesis of the compounds and polymers formed by these elements makes for an interesting book. To give an example of the interesting content, one sentence will be quoted from Chapter 1 that sums up a lot of the chemistry of the Group IV elements. "While most of the compounds of the Group IV elements are tetravalent, the trend to divalency increases with atomic number." Chapter 1 continues with a good overview of the Group IV polymers. Hyperbranched polymers are the subject of Chapter 2. The name hyperbranched is apt for these molecular jumbles. This chapter explains how they are made and their properties. Silica-polyamine composite materials, which can be used for chromatography and metal sequestering, are reviewed in the next chapter. This leads to a discussion of polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) polymers in Chapter 5. POSS compounds, which are silsesquioxanes, are another example of interesting polymers. As shown in the book, POSS compounds come in a variety of shapes, including cages and ladders. POSS molecules react with organics as outlined in this book. Silica-containing compounds play a prominent role in a book on Group IV polymers, as well they should. To prove this point, Chapter 6 covers silsesquioxanes, which can have a variety of interesting shapes and are organic carbon and silicon molecules. Chapter 7 treats the reader to a discussion of siloxane elastomers or rubbers. Biological silica synthesis and structures is the subject of Chapter 8. To gain insights into how diatoms make their elaborate biosilica structure, read Chapter 8. The rest of the Group IV elements each rate a chapter in this book. Organogermanium, organotin, and organolead each has interesting chemistry, as ably demonstrated. Advanced tools, such as the scanning-electron microscope, the atomic-force microscope, the Fourier transform infrared spectrometer, thermo-gravimetric analysis, and differential-gravimetric analysis, were used in characterization of compounds in this book. Illustrating uses of these techniques provides greater understanding of the techniques as well as the substances characterized.
Basically, this book is for those interested in chemistry, biosynthesis, materials, and especially polymers. Macromolecules Containing Metal and Metal-Like Elements, Volume 4 is written at the advanced undergraduate level. As may be judged by reading this cursory review, this volume gets a firm thumbs up.
For more on Macromolecules Containing Metal and Metal-Like Elements Volume 4: Group IVA Polymers, visit the Wiley web site.
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