310
antiomeric separations and a historical re-
view. Part 2 consists of one chapter only,
dealing with chiral derivatization. This can be
an important preamble to chiral resolution,
but could well have been embodied in Part 1
to avoid its lonely isolation in Part 2. All of
the introductory chapters are relevant and
allow the text to stand on its own as a refer-
ence work. The chapters are well written and
illustrated, and stick closely to their objec-
tives. Part 3 is undoubtedly the crux of the
book and in eight chapters deals systemati-
cally with direct chiral resolution. Chapter
titles are: chiral ligand exchange chromatog-
raphy; synthetic multiple-interaction chiral
bonded phases; immobilised proteins as
HPLC chiral stationary phases; cyclodextrin
inclusion complexation; binding to cellulose
derivatives; binding to synthetic polymers;
ion-pairing; and other direct chiral resolution
methods. Throughout these the book lives up
to its objective by concentrating on applica-
tions, the influence of experimental parame-
ters, other practical considerations, ad-
vantages and disadvantages of procedures etc.
Columns and column stationary phases are
more often taken for granted in that "active"
structures are presented, but few details are
given concerning preparation and manufac-
ture (this information is often protected by
suppliers of course!). Numerous examples of
specific chromatographic separations are
given along with the actual chromatograms.
Part 4 deals in three chapters with the strategy
and optimisation of chiral chromatographic
separations, including a discussion of how to
go about choosing a particular separation
procedure. For those in the field already it is
dubious how valuable these pages are likely
to be. Finally Part 5 covers future trends and
requirements and deals with instrumental
hardware as well as new chiral column pack-
ings, the demand for preparative scale sys-
tems and computer modelling studies.
The book certainly seems to fill a gap in
the market and should be acquired by all
scientists and laboratories active in this area,
as well as by the libraries of science-based
institutions. Overall the quality of production
is good. There is some variation with regards
to schemes, diagrams and chromatograms,
arising presumably from the variation in qual-
ity received by the publisher from the authors.
This does not however detract from the over-
all feel of the book. Finally, this reviewer
much prefers the referencing system which
uses numbers in the text, rather than authors'
names, but again this is purely a personal
view.
D.C. SHERRINGTON
Bioseparations: Downstream Processingfor Bi-
otechnology, by Paul E. Belter, E.L.
Cussler, and Wei-Shou Hu, John Wiley
and Sons Inc., New York, NY, 1988, 368
pages, ISBN 0-471-84737-2, £38.50.
In the preface, the book claims to provide
a bridge between the two cultures of life
sciences and engineering (presumably chem-
ical). It is aimed at final-year chemical
engineering u n d e r g r a d u a t e s and post-
graduates from other disciplines: life sciences,
chemistry and civil engineering.
The book is organised around four main
sections which follow common stages in the
recovery and purification of biological prod-
ucts; removal of insolubles (filtration, centri-
fugation and cell disruption), product isola-
tion (extraction and adsorption), product
purification (chromatography, precipitation,
ultrafiltration and electrophoresis) and pol-
ishing (crystallisation and drying). Distilla-
tion, evaporation and absorption are among
those topics given scanty treatment, if any,
since they are not considered to be biosep-
arations.
On the whole this is not a book for chem-
ical engineers. The treatment is generally
much too brief and will have been covered

more extensively elsewhere in their course.
There are one or two exceptions to this, for
example the section on cell disruption. Some-
times the significance of the material being
biological is emphasised, e.g. protein de-
naturation during drying. Other times it is
not, e.g. problems with emulsification and
damage to proteins due to solvents are men-
tioned only in a worked example.
The book is, however, a good attempt to
provide a guide to bioseparations for non-
chemical engineers. It avoids the pit-fall of
being too descriptive which can give the mis-
leading impression that Chemical Engineering
is a non-numerate discipline. Equations are
presented with just enough derivation to
clarify the underlying principles and assump-
tions.
The style is pleasantly light and informal.
Occasionally this g r a t e s - - " . . , the results are
a bevy of Bessel functions". Any disagree-
ments I have with the technical content stem
Books received
High-Performance Liquid Chromatography of
Biopolymers and Biooligomers, by O. Mike~,
Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1988, ISBN 0 - 4 4 4 -
41616-1. Part A: Principles, Materials and
311
from the attempt to play down issues. For
example, " . . . t h e 'equilibrium line' ... is
nothing more than an energy balance" or the
statement that the main purpose of a psych-
rometric chart is to give " t h e equilibrium
concentration in the vapor versus tempera-
ture".
The feature I most like is that it is often
admitted that theory is being presented only
because it is conventional to attempt to use it
while time and again the need for experimen-
tal testing is stressed. There are many worked
examples and problems for which answers are
provided.
The book would make an excellent text for
non-chemical engineering students though the
price may limit the demand. For anyone in
industry it would make a useful primer to
bioseparations. I will use it as a source of
problems and exam questions.
G. BELL
Techniques, xiv + 379 pages, hardcover,
$150.00/Df1285.00; Part B: Separation of In-
dividual Compound Classes, xiii + 721 pages,
hardcover, $189.50/Df1360.00.