Abstract
THE reader of this book can scarcely fail to notice how technical literature has developed during the past generation. Books used by students formerly were mainly descriptive. This applied to fuel technology—a subject amenable in part to considerable quantitative physical treatment. It includes industrial operations involving chemical reactions on the largest scale and of the greatest intensity. Indeed, some of these were used by the early pioneers in their studies of thermodynamic principles. It is not surprising that in time writers found it necessary, in the interpretation of technical processes, to use modern physical chemistry. In the United States, Haslam and Russell in 1926 produced their book on “Fuels and Their Combustion”, which gave to many students the first approach of this kind. Since then developments in practice have taken place, and more particularly in petroleum technology. This deals in the main with liquid materials. These lend themselves especially to physical treatment, which is reflected by several chapters in this book by Griswold. While giving an account of fuel practice, at any rate of American practice, it is sprinkled throughout with references to modern physico-chemical theory. This should be advantageous to many students who find difficult the same approach by way of text-books of abstract theory. There are many who would find the grasp easier when theory is associated with industrial processes.
Fuels, Combustion and Furnaces
By Prof. John Griswold. (McGraw-Hill Chemical Engineering Series.) Pp. vii + 496. (New York and London: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1946.) 27s. 6d.
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HODSMAN, H. Fuel Practice. Nature 160, 5 (1947). https://doi.org/10.1038/160005a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/160005a0