Book Review of Inorganic Reactions in Water

Abstract

Ronald Rich has written an extensive review of the aqueous chemistry of the elements (including the transactinide or superheavy elements). To say that Rich's effort is Herculean may be an exaggeration, but not by much. He methodically and systematically considers the aqueous reactions of every element inwater.The result is somewhat overwhelming. The book is organized logically: Each group of the periodic table has its own chapter, and each element is then given a section of the chapter. The sections are broken out into subsections detailing an element's reactions with reagents derived from various other elements. The organization of the book is based on the periodic table and therefore electronic structure, whereas the emphasis of the content is on similarities and differences in chemical behavior regardless of electronic structure. If you are interested in descriptive inorganic chemistry, this is perhaps not a bad way to treat the material. The book is extremely informative, and Rich has clearly dedicated himself to finding every possible aqueous reaction. Nonetheless, some aspects of the book prevent me from giving it a ringing endorsement. My biggest issue with the book is that much of the information on which it is based is not cited. Rich addresses this fact in the introduction. He acknowledges that he is forgoing inclusion of the tens of thousands of primary references so that he can use that space to include a greater variety of reactions. If you are reading this book for enjoyment, this argument makes sense. However, if you are interested in the technical information, then you will have a difficult time replicating the reactions described. As an example, in Section 10.2.1 (reactions of Pd, Pt, and Ds with reagents derived from hydrogen and oxygen) Rich states, “A small excess ofH2O2, with dilute H2SO4 and Kþ, oxidizes [Pt(CN)4]2- partly on warming, cooling, and evaporating, to make the interesting, bronze-colored, electrically conducting, ionic solid, a linear polymer...” This is indeed interesting, but because the reference is not provided, I have no idea where this procedure may have been published or any information that would enable me to perform the reaction. Again, if you are a casual reader, this is acceptable. With that said, Rich does provide an extensive bibliography with hundreds of references in the introduction and after each chapter. My second concern is that the book is inordinately textheavy. There are no figures, tables, or charts in the main body of the book. The appendices do contain such graphics, and they are interesting and informative, but I think that Rich would have been better served by incorporating them into the main body of the book, if only to break up the text. As I stated previously, all of that text becomes overwhelming. All in all, Rich has compiled the most impressive collection of information on aqueous inorganic reactions that I have ever seen. This book undoubtedly has a niche audience. If you have an interest in aqueous descriptive inorganic chemistry (which I do!) then you will want to see this book. But, at $249, you might want to convince a library to purchase it first.