Ana@ tica Chimica Acta, 86 (1976) 327-330 0 ElsevierScientific PubiishingCompany, Amsterdam - Printed in The Netherlands
Book Reviews
Alan Wiseman (Ed.), Handbook of Enzyme Technology, Ellis Horwood, Chichester, U.K., 1975, xii + 275 pp., priceSl5.00. This book is devoted to aspects of the rapidly expanding subject of the large-scale preparation and use of enzymes. The analytical usage of enzymes, although rapidly increasing too, is never likeiy to be more than a small fraction of the industrial usage. Nevertheless, much of the information contained in this book is of value to the analytical chemist. The book is in two sections, dealing with the principles of enzyme production and utilization, and with data relevant to industrial applications of enzymes. In the first section, the discussion of immobilized enzymes, including their analytical applications, by Barker and Kay, is particularly valuable, and the description of enzyme production and purification techniques involves a great deal of analytical chemistry. In the data section the analytical chemist will be particulaxly interested in the detailed methods given for enzyme insolubilization (Barker and Kennedy), and generally appreciative of the chapters on industrial practice in the usage of enzymes (Wiseman) and on the characteristics of these enzymes (Gould). The book is well written, and contains a great deal of tabulated material, including information on commercial equipment_ It will be of great value to industrial chemists and chemical engineers, and of more than passing interest to analytical chemists. A. Townshend
R. W, Frei and 0, Hutzinger (Eds,), Analytical Aspects of Mercury and other Heavy Metals in the Environment, Gordon and Breach, New York, 1975, vii + 196 pp., price 333.50. This volume contains a collection of papers, most of which have an analytical bias, which have been previously published in either the Intemation~ J’ournal of Environmental and Analytical Chemistry or Toxicological and Environmental Chemistry Review. The contributions, all of which have an environmental flavour (in the widest sense), range from review articles to original papers on the development of analytical techniques for heavy metals. For the most part, the emphasis is on application of atomic absorption methods, including flameless ones, but some space is also devoted to anodic stripping polarography (sic) and to activation analysis. None of the papers is particularly memorable and it is difficult to see the justification for reprinting them in the form of this far from inexpensive book. Indeed, it seems to the reviewer that