analytical instrumentation—performance characteristics and quality (currell, graham)
TRANSCRIPT
Chemical Education Today
34 Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 78 No. 1 January 2001 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
Book & Media Reviewsedited by
Jeffrey KovacUniversity of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996-1600
Analytical Instrumentation—PerformanceCharacteristics and Quality
by Graham Currell
Wiley: Chichester, UK, 2000. xxv + 307 pp. Paperback:ISBN 0-471-99901-6. $55.00.
reviewed by Jack K. Steehler
This book provides guidance to analytical practitionersregarding the use of instrument performance criteria whenmaking purchase decisions and when pursuing solutions toreal-life instrumentation problems. The premise of this work isthat it is important to understand in some detail the featuresand limitations of modern instruments as expressed in standardmeasures of performance such as accuracy, precision, lineardynamic range, and limit of detection. Separate sections of thebook explore the fundamentals of these performance criteriaand the application of these criteria to specific instrumentsor components. The end result is presentation in depth ofthe use of such criteria.
The book is organized into four groupings of chapters.The first chapters define and explore the major performancecriteria and associated statistics. A second set of chapters looksat the application of these criteria to broad types of analyticalmeasurement: UV–visible spectroscopy, atomic spectroscopy,chromatography, etc. The third set of chapters dissect individualinstruments more explicitly, at the component level (e.g. sepa-rate chapters on HPLC, GC, and capillary electrophoresis).A final group of chapters look at fundamental principles suchas signals, noise sources, and convolution. The flow amongthese groups isn’t smooth and connected, but useful material
is found in all four sections.The reader of this text should have had a course in in-
strumental analysis. The tight specific focus on performancecriteria requires the reader to have a broad prior exposure toanalytical instrumentation. The value of this text is in addingan extra level of depth on specific topics that affect analyticalperformance. A reader who wishes to understand performancecriteria and associated statistics in depth or to understand howcommon instrument components limit performance will findthis book useful.
The book is part of a new Analytical Techniques in theSciences series, which speaks to a broader audience than thesimilar earlier series, Analytical Chemistry by Open Learning.The open-learning style is still used; discussion questions andself-assessment questions (SAQs) are included throughout eachchapter. Although earlier texts in this style sometimes feltawkward to read and use, this one reads smoothly. Questionstraditionally left for an end-of-chapter section are simply in-serted at appropriate places throughout the text. Since fullanswers are provided for all questions in the text, thesequestions are more useful than the traditional end-of-chapterlist of questions. One caution: the answer to SAQ 3.2 uses non-standard interpretations of accuracy and precision.
The stated aims of the author are to deepen the reader’sunderstanding of performance criteria, for use in purchasingthe best instrument, confirming ongoing performance ofinstruments, and understanding uncertainty in analyticalmeasurements. For the most part, the book achieves thesegoals and is a worthy addition to the bookshelf of any ana-lytical chemist who routinely uses performance criteria.
Jack Steehler is in the Department of Chemistry, RoanokeCollege, Salem, VA 24153-3794; [email protected].