This volume is the twenty-first in the Elsevier series on chromatography and comprehensively covers all aspects of environmental analysis using gas and liquid chromatography. There is an introductory chapter followed by three chapters dealing with sampling and sample treatment, two chapters on applications of gas chromatography and liquid chromatography, and chapters on laboratory safety and regulatory matters. The book is well written and clearly presented and would serve as an interesting and easily readable text for the general reader wishing to learn about environmental analysis in general and chromatographic applications in particular. However, there are also a number of useful tables and a comprehensive set of references which make the book suitable for practising analytical chemists and environmental chemists in industrial laboratories and in public and academic institutions.
The authors have quite rightly placed considerable emphasis on sampling and sample treatment procedures. The requirements, problems and regulations affecting sampling are outlined and an international list of suppliers of standards is given. Sampling theory and practical sampling methods from a variety of sample matrices are covered, as are physical and chemical means of sample treatment. The final chapter covers the legislation of several national and international agencies with respect to environmental problems requiring the use of chromatographic techniques for analysis. Information from the U.K., however, is noticeably absent.
This book provides a comprehensive coverage of environmental problem solving using chromatographic techniques and at the same time is interesting and easy to read throughout. It is, therefore, to be recommended, both as a general text and as a useful reference for practising environmental chemists. P. J. Worsfold