New Methods in Analytical Chemistry [antikvár]

PREFACE Both the scope of analytical chemistry and its literature have increased at such a rate recently that it is very difficult for textbooks of analytical chemistry to keep pace with the new developments. Most of the standard textbooks may be placed in one of two broad classes. There are, in the first class, those which deal with the newer modes of analysis, usually referred to under the inclusive heading of instrumental or physical methods. Such books, if they are to act as working manuals, must of necessity confine themselves to one or two modes or instruments, but a good range of specialised works on such analytical fields as absorptiometry, spectrographic methods, polarography or chromatography is available. The second category comprises the conventional textbooks of analytical chemistry. Unless devoted to one field of analysis, such as the analysis of metals and alloys, or the analysis of fuels^,' these books are particularly serviceable for teaching purposes. But their range as working manuals is often restricted by the fact that they tend to confine themselves primarily to methods of long standing, only replacing these by more modern methods when the latter have been thoroughly tested under a wide variety of conditions. It is possibly for this reason that the average analytical chemist tends to show surprise when he is told that there is much that is new in the fields of gravimetric and titrimetric analysis; there tends to be a belief that all that is new in analytical chemistry must needs function round an instrument. Consequently a new method employing the classical techniques may remain hidden in the literature until some research worker is faced with the problem of determining a particular constituent under conditions hitherto regarded as unusual, and where the established methods fail. The worker resurrects the method and may find that it meets his requirements. Such resurrection frequently necessitates many hours of searching the literature, in addition to the experimental work involved. Both of us have on many occasions found it necessary to seek alternative methods for a variety of determinations, and the initial