Polymer International 39 (1996) 161-164

Book Reviews

Advances in polymer science 114: Polymer analysis and charac- terisation Edited by A. Abe, H. Benoit, H.-J. Cantow et al. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, 1994. pp. vii + 299, price DM228.00, Sfr215.00, 081778.40. ISBN 3-540-57238-4

The use of a suite of complementary techniques is a great advantage in the analysis and characterisation of polymers. This is particularly the case in complex or demanding environments-in engineering or biomedical applications, for example-where measurement of a variety of properties is required. This volume, which comprises reviews of chromato- graphic, electrophoretic, spectroscopic and scattering tech- niques, exemplifies the diversity of analytical methods available.

In their opening chapter, Separation of Macromolecules in Gels: Permeation Chromatography and Electrophoresis, Viovy and Lesec succinctly review basic aspects of GPC and gel electrophoresis and then describe the present experimental state-of-the-art. Aspects including gel media, instruments and detection are discussed, and the complementarity, and limi- tations, of the two techniques are emphasised. Bershtein and Ryzhov then review Far Infrared Spectroscopy of Polymers and demonstrate its emergence as an important tool for char- acterising the molecular dynamics and intermolecular inter- actions which are important determinants of the physical properties of a polymer. Selective Spectroscopy of Chromo- phore Doped Polymers and Glasses (Osad'ko) covers methods such as photochemical and photophysical hole-burning and fluorescence line narrowing.

The remaining two revinws are devoted to scattering tech- niques. Matsuoka and Ise contribute Small-Angle and Ultra- Small Angle Scattering Study (sic) of the Ordered Structure in Polyelectrolytc Solutions and Colloidal Dispersions, which surveys the use of X-ray techniques. The collection concludes with Static and Dynamic Light Scattering on Moderately Concentrated Solutions: Isotropic Solutions of Flexible and Rodlike Chains and Nematic Solutions of Rodlike Chains by Berry. The author reviews the use of polarized and depolar- ized light scattering to elucidate thermodynamic and dynamic data on a variety of polymer systems.

The reviews in this volume are consistently well structured and presented, and each affords a useful overview of its topic. A total of 748 references are cited, fairly evenly distributed over the five chapters, the latest dating from 1992.

M. D. Purbrick

Advanced materials '93, I1 Part A: Biomaterials, organic and intelligent materials Edited by H. Aoki, K. Segawa, T. Nishi, H. Hasegawa, I. Karube, T. Kajiyama and K. Takahashi. Part B: Information storage materials Edited by M. Abe, H. Yokoyama, K. Kawakami, S. Takayama, J. K. Howard and M. Naoe. Elsevier Science BV, Amsterdam, 1994. pp. 1320, price US$497.00, Df1845.00.

The Third International Union of Materials Research Societies (IUMRS) International Conference on Advanced Materials (ICAM) was held in Tokyo in 1993. This meeting encompassed 37 symposia, whose proceedings have been published as a six volume series, Advanced Materials '93. Volume 11, reviewed here, is divided into two parts.

Part A : Biomaterials, Organic and Intelligent Materials comprises contributions from seven different symposia. The first chapter, devoted to Biomaterials consists of 10 papers and extends to 53 pages. Two papers describe hyaluronan- based materials and their applications, the remainder dealing predominantly with ceramics. Catalytic Materials, which follows, covers an extensive range of systems and processes in 24 papers and 104 pages. Ordered Polymers (23 papers, 100 pages) includes several notable articles, particularly that of Matsuoka on Cooperative Conformational Relaxation and Kim on Recent Developments in IPN Materials. The chapter entitled Photo- and Electro-responsive Materials (36 papers, 150 pages) includes accounts of the applications of liquid crys- talline systems, nonlinear optical materials and novel photo- polymers. Biosensors (14 papers, 60 pages) then precedes Construction and Function of Organic Thin Films (40 papers, 170 pages). The latter features several excellent contributions, a particular highlight being Supramolecular Structures and Reactivity in Bilayers and Langmuir-Blodgett Assemblies Formed via Self-Assembly of Polyfunctional Amphiphiles by Ulman and co-workers. Part A closes with Intelligent Materials (8 papers, 35 pages). There are two outstanding con- tributions here: Intelligent Thermo-Responsive Hydrogels- Mechanism of On-Off Switches for Drug Release by Yoshida et al., and Intelligent Polymers: Examples of Response Deter- mination via Macromolecule Architecture by Vert.

Part B : Information Storage Materials differs from Part A in that it contains papers from a single symposium. These are arranged in six chapters, namely Magnetic Recording, Magneto-Optical Recording, Phase-Change Type and Novel Type Recordings, Giant Magnetoresistance, Novel Thin Films and Physics of Materials for Information Storage. A total of 98 papers occupy 505 pages.

ISBN 0-444-81992-4

161 Polymer International 0959-8103/96/$09.00 0 1996 SCI. Printed in Great Britain