Book Review

Electrolytes at Interfaces. By S. Durand-Vidal,J.-P. Simonin, and P. Turq, Kluwer Academic Publish-ers: Dordrecht, the Netherlands, 2000; p. 344. ISBN:0-7923-5922-4

This book makes a valiant effort to provide com-prehensive background information and conceptsfor those who are interested in gaining a better per-spective on this complex topic. There are relativelyfew areas of chemical physics that are not relevantfor this investigation; in a sense surface chemistry isour final examination on the subject. This presentschallenges to the assembly of the various pieces ofthe puzzle selected by the authors: hydrodynam-ics, electrostatics, intermolecular interactions, liquidtheory including applications to electrolytes (theGouy–Chapman model and the Debye–Huckel real-ization), thermodynamics, statistical mechanics andchemical equilibrium, quantum mechanical appli-cations to spectroscopy, reaction–diffusion reactionsequences, transport properties, electrokinetic phe-nomena, conductance, and polyelectrolytes.

Since a thorough exposition of each of thesetopics would run into a many-volume set, theinevitable compromise entails a combination ofderivation and revelation. For example, the chap-ter on van der Waals forces gives a good renditionof the basic derivation along with a summary of re-sults for other common forms of interaction such asthermally averaged dipole–dipole, charge-induceddipole, dipole-induced dipole, etc. The figure il-lustrating these interactions along with the basicformulas was a good pedagogical technique. Thebook would have profited from a more liberal uti-lization of such summaries.

The discussion of Chapman–Gouy and Debye–Huckel theory is basically a good introduction to thesubject, but readers should be cautioned to combinethe earlier material starting at pages 32, 63, and 87,respectively, with the mathematical background onpage 115. In the editor’s foreword it is observed that

this book is not easy; here one suspects that unnec-essary difficulties are introduced by an incompletecoordination of the efforts of the several authors.Nonetheless enough is given to outline the conceptsand issues, as well as to steer one to the next level ofsophistication in the literature, which after all is oneof the principal tasks of such a book.

Many interesting concepts are detailed for thereader such as the sources, strengths, and limita-tions of in situ vs. ex situ data, the use of exoticspectroscopic techniques, for example, SFG (sumfrequency generation) in concentrating on the lowsymmetry transition layer between higher symme-try liquid and solid phases, and specific forms ofnet charge sum rules to facilitate closure of equationsystems. The discussion of a multistep reaction–diffusion model, MTWCR (mass transport withchemical reaction) is particularly recommended forthose who gravitate toward empirical modeling;this is also an important phase of analysis. Perhapssomeone might be tempted to close the equationson page 256 by setting jHR, i equal to a constant andnumerically solving the resulting nonlinear differ-ential equation (3.41).

The presentation of the mathematical back-ground for the theory of electrolyte conductanceis one area where the actual development wouldhave best been kept on a simpler level and readersplain and simply warned that their work is cut outfor them; the graphical presentation of experimentaland theoretical data goes a long way to make up forthis.

In summary, this is book to be given serious con-sideration for the addition to one’s scientific library;those few sections that are turgid, such as the dis-cussion of the electrical stress tensor, provide amplereferences should in principle return the reader tothe straight and narrow.

Finally, we trust that in later editions a little moreeffort will be devoted to proofing.

DENNIS CALDWELL

International Journal of Quantum Chemistry, Vol. 87, 167 (2002)© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.DOI 10.1002/qua.10007