By way of background, I'm an engineer, recently developed a fascination with the more practical aspects of chemistry, trying to learn more about it.
Got some of the theoretical variety in college, but nothing I could actually DO anything with.
I worked through Kevin Dunn's "Caveman Chemistry" book, and am looking for something a little deeper on inorganic chemistry -- basically to get some
more technical information on several of the topics he covered.
I see what look like several good books on the subject in the site library... but as the library says, it has 50k pages of reading to offer. I'm
trying to narrow the field a bit.
Can anyone here recommend one of the books in the library here, or perhaps available via archive.org or google books that they would recommend as
better than the others to start? Are there a couple of commonly read "classics" I could focus on?
I'd prefer to stick to stuff available electronically, as a lot of my down time happens on airplanes, so I want a format I can conveniently carry. DJF90 - 25-3-2010 at 09:06
So you're after practical inorganic chemistry? If this is the case, I would suggest Brauer's "Handbook of Preparative Inorganic Chemistry", which I am
almost certain is available in the forum library. If you're just after some more (albeit deeper) theory, then perhaps something like Shriver &
Atkin's "Inorganic Chemistry" would be better suited. Of course there are many books out there; you just have to find one that suits your tastes.Polverone - 25-3-2010 at 09:34
If you liked Caveman Chemistry, I heartily recommend James Sherridan Muspratt's Chemistry, Theoretical, Practical, and Analytical as Applied and
Relating to Arts and Manufactures.
Volume 1 is on archive.org. My very first book digitization project was to scan both volumes. I no longer have them online because, my scanning choices being
very poor on that first project, the page images are large in file size yet hard to read. The theoretical insights in this work should be taken with
more than a grain of salt. The practical information is fascinating. There are many illustrations and descriptions of mid-19th century chemical
processes. Before I read this and other books from the same era I'd had no idea that practical chemistry was so well developed at the time despite the
paucity of theory. The brief historical sketches I'd seen many times in general chemistry textbooks gave the impression that not much of note happened
in chemistry between the time of Lavoisier and Mendelev.bdgackle - 25-3-2010 at 09:48
Thank you very much for the replies. Sounds like I will start with Brauer and Muspratt.
I'm interested in learning enough theory to understand, explain, and quantify what I see; however, it's the practical aspects that have drawn me to
chemistry as a hobby.
There is a certain sense of power to be gained, I think, with being able to create something from very simple materials. Takes the "magic" out of
many of the consumer goods I see on the shelf. Becoming aware that a few large scale processes drive much of our global economy is also deeply
interesting to me.
entropy51 - 25-3-2010 at 14:38
If you're looking for mostly experiments with a little theory, my recommendation would be Chemistry in the Laboratory JohnWW - 25-3-2010 at 18:38
So I skimmed a good chunk of Brauer last night. Definately a great resource, and I am sure I will be referring to it in the future. When I read
instructions for a process, however, my mind immediately asks "where did the precursers come from?". This is less practical than academic curiosity
-- I don't think I'd feel any differently if I could buy reagents at Walmart. Muspratt is next on the agenda... perhaps more luck there.
I've also run into a series called "Manuals of Chemical Technology". Main author for most of them is Geoffrey Martin.
As far as I can tell, there were six in the series, but I can only find full texts for three. The books were:
1) Coal-tar and Dye Stuffs (Can't find)
2) Rare Earth Industry (Found)
3) Industrial Nitrogen Compounds (Found - Big suprise, right?)
4) Chlorine and Chlorine Products (Found)
5) Sulphur and sulphuric acid (Can't find)
6) Salt/Alkalai industry (Can't find)
I'm especially interested to find number 5, but would like to finish out the series. Google books seems to know about all of them, but doesn't have
texts for some. Is there some kind of copyright weirdness going on here? I'd be interested to see if anyone with more knowledge than me has read any
of these, and what your thoughts are. Of course, if you know where to locate them (physically or electronically) that would be cool too. If I can
get my hands on a physical copy perhaps I could recipricate by scanning it for the rest of the community.
I think my main area of interest is understanding how we get from truly raw materials to something more refined and useful. I've always had an
interest in how I can influence my environment -- that's how I ended up as an engnieer. Now, if I put down the screwdriver and pick up a test tube,
what can I do with the stuff around me?
The first thing I intend to play with is mineral acid creation -- the supheric/nitric acid threads on this board are what drew me here first. This
line of inquery has a useful and practical application for this community, given the current political climate; however, that is not my main
motivation. SWilkin676 - 15-4-2010 at 12:46
I bought a copy of this on ebay for less than 10 bucks and it covers the practical aspects of laboratory work like like how to properly remove a
chemical from a bottle - so that's why the caps are hollow!! Or the glory and wonder that is tygon tubing.
And don't pay for anything you can get for free - lots of handy books at scribd and google.
