The words in () are my attempt at kewording the book. Comments invited or suggestions for improved keywords.
Title: Crystallisation of Polymers
(Second Edition) Vol. 1 Equilibrium Concepts
Author:
Leo Mandelkern, Florida State University
Publisher: Cambridge University Press 2002
Price: £ 75.00 (hardback)
ISBN 0521816815; xiii + 433 pages.
Polymer crystallisation has been studied from both an academic and an industrial point of view for well over 50 years. It is still an active field with different schools of thought, surprises turning up and a general acknowledgement that certain aspects are still not well understood. Thus the publication of the first volume of the second edition of Mandlekern's 'Crystallisation of Polymers' is to be welcomed. The first edition, published in 1964, is now hard to find and obviously needs updating. The expansion in the field is such that this new edition comes in three volumes:
Only a person like Professor Mandelkern who has worked in this field most of his life could undertake such a task. He brings together underlying principles, illustrated by numerous examples and comments on both theoretical and experimental limitations.
The first volume makes it clear that although kinetic factors often dominate the observed structure one must begin with an understanding of equilibrium concepts. Each chapter starts with an introduction and some theory progressing into more detail illustrated by examples from the literature. In the theory sections relationships between different approaches are explained and the limits of applicability are noted. Examples are drawn from a comprehensive range of polymers, predominately synthetic polymers (not just polyolefins as sometimes happens) but biological polymers such as proteins are also included. On average there are over 100 references per chapter covering a wide spread of authors and publications. With many people now relying on electronic literature searches it is helpful to have older classic references together with more recent ones.
The chapter headings describe the scope of this book: introduction, fusion of homopolymers, polymer-diluent mixtures, polymer-polymer mixtures, fusion of copolymers, thermodynamic quantities, fusion of cross-linked polymers, and oriented crystallisation and contractility. There are useful tables of thermodynamic properties determined by a variety of dif ferent techniques but it is unfortunate that the pages containing these large tables are unnumbered. Otherwise the book is well indexed.
This (together with the next 2 volumes) will be an important reference book for scientists and engineers working in the field of polymer crystallisation.
Mary Vickers
Page last updated 5 Oct 2003
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