Customer Reviews

Environmental Chemistry: Essentials of Chemistry for Engineering Practice, Volume 4A

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I have read through both Volume 4A and 4B. These two texts are invaluable resources for teaching Environmental Chemistry at the Junior-graduate school level. Both books are well written and include the fundamentals of studying air, water, and soil pollution. As a former student of Dr. Yen, I can say without reservation, that he is a motivational and superior college professor. Now that I am teaching college-level courses, I always recommend that my students make the investment and purchase his books. Personally, I have found them to be invaluable as reference materials.

Environmental Chemistry is a fine text book. It would provide a solid basis for any Environmental Chemistry, Environmental Science or Environmental Engineering Course providing the basics in understanding Environmental Chemistry. The book features a quantitive, mathematical approach to the subject. It is well referenced. And the problems at the end of each chapter will help a student better understand the material presented in the text. I look forward to the publication of its companion volume.

I have found this book to be excellent. As a researcher, educator and consultant, I often need a book that explains chemistry and its impact in environmental engineering. Rarely have I found one book that covers the field so completely as this book. What I like most is that it is an applied book. Environmental Chemistry is clearly and concisely covered. Recommmend it as a textbook for undergraduate and graduate level classes as well as a general reference source for professionals.

The vol.4A of this book includes every topic of our environmental problems, from lithosphere to biosphere and was decribed from the view point of a engineer. Many principles of evvironmental chemistry and engineering models are introduced in this book. And all of these materials were written by the author in a very clear way, so the students can follow this book very easily. It would be a good book in the courses of environmental engineering or applied chemistry.

This book provides an extensive introduction to environmental chemistry. Although it is most suitable for a graduate level course in environmental engineering, it is also a good reference book for chemical/petroleum engineers and environmental chemists. The short introduction for each chapter enables students or engineers to review the basic problems before going to the thoroughly discussion of the principles. The unique feature of this book is that the overall theme of the book is to link chemical principals with environmental issues.

The first chapters are an overview of physical, organic, analytical, colloid and surface chemistry. The technical level of the chemistry presented in these first chapters and subsequently applied in rest of the text are fairly high. This suggests that the student taking a course based upon this text needs to have some previous coursework in chemistry, particularly physical chemistry.

The remainder of this volume treats each of the five major global cycles (envirospheres), and focuses on the important environmental chemistry issues: The lithosphere - minerals and energy sources The atmosphere - air structure and properties The hydrosphere - water resources The pedosphere - soil chemistry The biosphere - life

The text is written clearly and topics are covered in a logical sequence. The book covers the important aspects of each of the envirospheres and is fairly comprehensive. No text (even in 762 pages) can cover everything, however. One omission noted, for example, was that there was no mention of natural gas hydrates in deep oceans or permafrost regions. These ice-like solids account for a significant amount of carbon in the lithosphere and also may play a role in the balance of methane as a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. In the chapter of atmosphere, it is also lacks of some detailed discussion on free radical chain reactions, oxygen radicals, and hydroxyl Rradicals.

Each chapter concludes with a problem set. In many cases these exercises serve the purpose of giving a student an "order o magnitude" appreciation of different environmental chemical issues.

Besides references to other books and papers at the end of each chapter, there is an appendix that lists a number of relevant web sites. This is a nice touch for the new electronic age. One gripe is that several figures have very small type from being shrunk to fit, and so the text is very small, and sometimes is barely legible.

There is a companion text, volume 4B. This book has as its focus the application of chemical engineering processes and unit operations to solving environmental problems.