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Unraveling polymer chains
BOOKS & MEDIA
Vibrational Spectroscopy of Polymers: Principles and Practice Neil Everall et al. (eds.) Wiley • 2007 • 586 pp ISBN: 978-0-470-01662-6 $250 / £130 / 195 This book describes the vibrational spectroscopy techniques used to study the chemical and physical characteristics of polymers. The special cases of composites and conducting polymers are also covered. The role of these techniques in understanding polymer weathering and degradation and in determining the optical, dielectric, and thermal properties of polymers is discussed.
Intermediate Mechanics of Materials Madhukar Vable Oxford University Press • 2007 • 624 pp ISBN: 978-0-19-518855-4 $104 / £40.99 This text provides a treatment of topics including three-dimensional stress and strain transformation, composites, nonlinear and inelastic structural analysis, and thin-walled structural members. Complex ideas are linked together, building on students’ prior knowledge of the basic concepts of stress and strain. Sample syllabi, slides, and exam questions are available online.
X-radiography of Textiles, Dress and Related Objects Sonia O’Connor and Mary Brooks Butterworth-Heinemann • 2007 • 360 pp ISBN: 978-0-7506-6632-9 $79.95 / £49.99 / 72.95 X-radiography is a nondestructive technique that can throw light on construction, manufacturing techniques, use, wear, repair, patterns of decay, and the dating of textile materials. This book describes, with the aid of case studies, how to interpret X-radiographs and maximize the information obtained from such images using digitization and digital image manipulation.
Expert Graduate Undergraduate
Unraveling polymer chains Macromolecules play an important role in our lives, both as biopolymers on which organisms rely and as synthetic polymers from which objects are made. A new textbook fills a gap in the field. Stu Whittington | University of Toronto, Canada | [email protected] It is difficult to imagine a student leaving university with an undergraduate degree in chemistry without having at least some exposure to macromolecular chemistry. There are many textbooks available at this and graduate levels. A new textbook should offer something new – a difference in coverage, approach, or attitude – and Gary Patterson’s book does this. Patterson takes the view, correctly in my opinion, that the physical chemistry of macromolecules is just physical chemistry applied to a particular if rather specialized system. One of the themes running through the book is that polymers are highly flexible molecules. To predict their properties, an appropriate average over conformations is necessary and the required tool is statistical mechanics. The book gives a useful account of the statistical mechanics of a single macromolecule, largely at the level of the rotational isomeric state approximation. There are brief but helpful accounts of several experimental techniques for investigating polymer structure, including nuclear magnetic resonance, vibrational spectroscopy, and light scattering, as well as a short chapter on rubber elasticity .
At higher concentrations, the polymer chains no longer behave quasi-independently and their properties cannot be described by a virial expansion about the infinitely dilute case. The polymer chains intermingle and monomers are surrounded by monomers of other chains. This is the semi-dilute regime. There is a beautiful description of polymers at these concentrations by Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, using simple but effective scaling arguments, of which Patterson gives a useful and interesting account. When the solution is even more concentrated the thermodynamics can be crudely approximated by Flory–Huggins theory. This mean-field theory predicts that such systems will display an upper critical solution temperature, but offers no explanation for the existence of a lower critical solution temperature. Patterson describes Flory–Huggins theory and also gives a brief account of Flory– Orwoll theory, which was designed Gary Patterson Physical Chemistry of Macromolecules
The conformational properties of polymers in dilute solution depend on the quality of the solvent. In a poor solvent, monomer-solvent contacts are energetically unfavorable and the polymer molecules collapse to form compact balls. In a good solvent, the polymer expands to maximize monomer-solvent contacts. This expansion of the polymer coil is called the excluded volume effect and was first explained semi-quantitatively by Paul Flory. The book contains a chapter on polymers in dilute solution, describing both equilibrium and nonequilibrium properties with a derivation of the force-extension curve. The approaches described in this chapter are now quite old, though the treatments are still useful as a first approximation. There is no mention of the selfconsistent field approach introduced by Sam Edwards in 1965 or of renormalization group methods (either through the connection to the N goes to zero limit of the N-vector model, or more direct methods). This is unfortunate since these are now part of the stock-in-
trade of polymer theory, and they deserve a mention even in a relatively elementary textbook.
Taylor & Francis/CRC Press • 2007 • 152 pp ISBN: 978-0824794675 $79.95 / £44.99
to explain lower critical solution temperatures. I would have liked to see a mention of more recent work, especially that of Ilya Prigogine and Donald Patterson. The book also contains brief accounts of the glass transition, stiff polymers, and polyelectrolytes. This is a well-written and useful book. I would have liked to see some more modern approaches described, but the Flory-style theories on which the book concentrates are still useful and required knowledge for anyone learning about the statistical mechanics of macromolecules. The book makes an important contribution and fills a gap in the range of available textbooks. It could be used either in an advanced undergraduate course or in an elementary graduate course. I enjoyed reading the book and it will find a permanent place on my bookshelf.
OCTOBER 2007 | VOLUME 10 | NUMBER 10
51
Vibrational Spectroscopy of Polymers: Principles and Practice Neil Everall et al. (eds.) Wiley • 2007 • 586 pp ISBN: 978-0-470-01662-6 $250 / £130 / 195 This book describes the vibrational spectroscopy techniques used to study the chemical and physical characteristics of polymers. The special cases of composites and conducting polymers are also covered. The role of these techniques in understanding polymer weathering and degradation and in determining the optical, dielectric, and thermal properties of polymers is discussed.
Intermediate Mechanics of Materials Madhukar Vable Oxford University Press • 2007 • 624 pp ISBN: 978-0-19-518855-4 $104 / £40.99 This text provides a treatment of topics including three-dimensional stress and strain transformation, composites, nonlinear and inelastic structural analysis, and thin-walled structural members. Complex ideas are linked together, building on students’ prior knowledge of the basic concepts of stress and strain. Sample syllabi, slides, and exam questions are available online.
X-radiography of Textiles, Dress and Related Objects Sonia O’Connor and Mary Brooks Butterworth-Heinemann • 2007 • 360 pp ISBN: 978-0-7506-6632-9 $79.95 / £49.99 / 72.95 X-radiography is a nondestructive technique that can throw light on construction, manufacturing techniques, use, wear, repair, patterns of decay, and the dating of textile materials. This book describes, with the aid of case studies, how to interpret X-radiographs and maximize the information obtained from such images using digitization and digital image manipulation.
Expert Graduate Undergraduate
Unraveling polymer chains Macromolecules play an important role in our lives, both as biopolymers on which organisms rely and as synthetic polymers from which objects are made. A new textbook fills a gap in the field. Stu Whittington | University of Toronto, Canada | [email protected] It is difficult to imagine a student leaving university with an undergraduate degree in chemistry without having at least some exposure to macromolecular chemistry. There are many textbooks available at this and graduate levels. A new textbook should offer something new – a difference in coverage, approach, or attitude – and Gary Patterson’s book does this. Patterson takes the view, correctly in my opinion, that the physical chemistry of macromolecules is just physical chemistry applied to a particular if rather specialized system. One of the themes running through the book is that polymers are highly flexible molecules. To predict their properties, an appropriate average over conformations is necessary and the required tool is statistical mechanics. The book gives a useful account of the statistical mechanics of a single macromolecule, largely at the level of the rotational isomeric state approximation. There are brief but helpful accounts of several experimental techniques for investigating polymer structure, including nuclear magnetic resonance, vibrational spectroscopy, and light scattering, as well as a short chapter on rubber elasticity .
At higher concentrations, the polymer chains no longer behave quasi-independently and their properties cannot be described by a virial expansion about the infinitely dilute case. The polymer chains intermingle and monomers are surrounded by monomers of other chains. This is the semi-dilute regime. There is a beautiful description of polymers at these concentrations by Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, using simple but effective scaling arguments, of which Patterson gives a useful and interesting account. When the solution is even more concentrated the thermodynamics can be crudely approximated by Flory–Huggins theory. This mean-field theory predicts that such systems will display an upper critical solution temperature, but offers no explanation for the existence of a lower critical solution temperature. Patterson describes Flory–Huggins theory and also gives a brief account of Flory– Orwoll theory, which was designed Gary Patterson Physical Chemistry of Macromolecules
The conformational properties of polymers in dilute solution depend on the quality of the solvent. In a poor solvent, monomer-solvent contacts are energetically unfavorable and the polymer molecules collapse to form compact balls. In a good solvent, the polymer expands to maximize monomer-solvent contacts. This expansion of the polymer coil is called the excluded volume effect and was first explained semi-quantitatively by Paul Flory. The book contains a chapter on polymers in dilute solution, describing both equilibrium and nonequilibrium properties with a derivation of the force-extension curve. The approaches described in this chapter are now quite old, though the treatments are still useful as a first approximation. There is no mention of the selfconsistent field approach introduced by Sam Edwards in 1965 or of renormalization group methods (either through the connection to the N goes to zero limit of the N-vector model, or more direct methods). This is unfortunate since these are now part of the stock-in-
trade of polymer theory, and they deserve a mention even in a relatively elementary textbook.
Taylor & Francis/CRC Press • 2007 • 152 pp ISBN: 978-0824794675 $79.95 / £44.99
to explain lower critical solution temperatures. I would have liked to see a mention of more recent work, especially that of Ilya Prigogine and Donald Patterson. The book also contains brief accounts of the glass transition, stiff polymers, and polyelectrolytes. This is a well-written and useful book. I would have liked to see some more modern approaches described, but the Flory-style theories on which the book concentrates are still useful and required knowledge for anyone learning about the statistical mechanics of macromolecules. The book makes an important contribution and fills a gap in the range of available textbooks. It could be used either in an advanced undergraduate course or in an elementary graduate course. I enjoyed reading the book and it will find a permanent place on my bookshelf.
OCTOBER 2007 | VOLUME 10 | NUMBER 10
51