Chemical Education Today
An Introduction to Industrial Chemistry, 3rd ed.
Alan Heaton, Ed. Blackie Academic & Professional, Chapman
& Hall: New York, 1996. 413 pp. ISBN 0 7514 0272 9.
An Introduction to Industrial Chemistry, 3rd edition,
has been perused several times, each time from a different
point of view. The publisher notes that this treatise “…pro-
vides undergraduate students of chemistry and chemical
engineering with an appreciation of the major features of
the chemical industry… .” The book comprises twelve
Sherlockian monographs by nine authors on various sub-
jects: Introduction (to the chemical industry), Sources of
Chemicals, Research and Development,* The World’s Ma-
jor Chemical Industries, Organizational Structures,* Tech-
nological Economics, Chemical Engineering, Energy, Envi-
ronmental Impact of the Chemical Industry,* Chlor-Alkali
Products, Catalysts and Catalysis, and Petrochemicals
(*newly added sections).
The sections, or chapters, in this text are well written.
There have been some efforts to tie these writings together,
even though they were written separately. The subjects in
each chapter are integrated well but in the space allotted
are not treated in depth. Many of the discussions deal with
topics that I teach in my first-year college chemistry
courses, “Chemical Principles” and “Introduction to Chem-
istry of Materials”. As these subjects are dealt with in An
Introduction to Industrial Chemistry, it seems that the read-
ers must have had some prior chemistry education to per-
mit full understanding of the subjects. Heaton, in the pref-
ace, indicates that this text is to be used in conjunction with
The Chemical Industry, 2nd edition, edited by Alan Heaton.
The latter text is not available to me and perhaps this omis-
sion has left my review unduly severe.
All chapters but one are written in what we usually
Vol. 74 No. 6 June 1997 • Journal of Chemical Education
consider the style for survey or overview courses, designed
to stimulate the reader (student) into more in-depth study
on specific items of interest. With this in mind, and since
this is the third edition, I examined the references listed in
each chapter and found no references later than 1994. In
fact, the chapter on technological economics, which might
well be of high interest in today’s society, has no references
later than 1982. The chapter referred to earlier, the one
titled “Chemical Engineering”, while factually correct, has
so many portions of structured and advanced chemical en-
gineering mathematics packed into 71 pages that I imag-
ine this contrast with the rest of the text might dissuade
the second-year student.
I next approached this review as a student might, try-
ing to find one or two new (to the student) terms that might
be deciphered by the authors throughout the text. Early on
(p 20) the term “zeolites” is used. There are five later refer-
ences to these moieties, but the student’s quest for under-
standing the term is left unsatisfied.
Finally, the chapter titled “The World’s Major Chemi-
cal Industries” does not truly represent today’s distribution
of chemical manufacturing (again, there are no references
later than 1982); it does accent the major manufacturers in
Great Britain, but minimizes the growth in these industries
in the Pacific Rim. There are several omissions, such as
Eastman Chemicals Corporation in Tennessee.
All in all this is a well written text. Certainly the idea
of this type of compendium is well intended. There is room
for serious updating as we approach the next century. A stu-
dent in today’s society, for instance, might ask, “Where does
silicon come from, and who manufactures it?”
Robert H. Paine
Department of Chemistry, Rochester Institute of
Technology, Rochester, NY 14623
627