BOOK REVIEW - APPLIED CATALYSIS

Chemical Engineering Kinetics, by J. M. Smith, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1980, XX+

676 PP., Price DM 75.50, ISBN O-07-058710-8.

This celebrated volume on chemical engineering kinetics by Professor J. M.

Smith now reappears as a third edition. A good deal of major surgery on the
rewriting of textual material has not been eschewed by the author, for, as
pointed out in the preface, there has been much progress in the field of chemical
reactor design over the past decade since the publication of the second edition.
The author is to be congratulated for not only presenting the subject of chemical
reaction engineering and chemical kinetics in a lucid style but also for taking
the time and trouble to introduce new subject matter in many places and which is
cleverly interwoven with material from the second edition. The result is not
only to bring the presentation of the subject up to date, but also to improve
the clarity with which the more difficult concepts are described.
Significant changes have been introduced in Chapter 3 dealing with the
fundamental concepts of reactor design. By utilising the principles of conti-
nuity, the presentation of material has been improved resulting in a clearer and
more direct synthesis of the reactor equations than was achieved in the second
edition. Similarly, Chapter 4 contains additional new material on polymerisation
reactions in continuous stirred tanks and a discussion of the principles of
recycle reactors. New textual matter also appears in Chapter 5 where non-iso-
thermal reactors are analysed in the context of the conservation equation for
energy. The third edition also contains expanded sections on catalysis embrac-
ing an outline of fundamental principles, a discussion of adsorption and also
catalyst preparation and selection. Such additions enhance the treatment of
heterogeneous reactors and kinetics which follows the reorganised Chapters 7 and
8. The remainder of the text deals with intra and interparticle transport,
reaction in porous catalysts and non-catalysed fluid-solid reactions.
There is a copious selection of numerical examples and problems in each
chapter. Many of the examples in the text outline the numerical procedures
necessary for solution of differential equations and are based on both Euler and
Runge-Kutta algorithms.
The standard of printing and binding is high. In particular, it is most
welcome to see complex mathematical material set so clearly. Once again, the
author has achieved an outstanding success for this is a book which every student
of chemical engineering must study if he is to master the subject of chemical
engineering kinetics.

Bath (Great Britain) W. J. Thomas

Accepted July 30, 1981.