Engineering Chemistry: Fundamentals and Applications 2nd Edition

Book Preface

The wide popularity and acceptance of the first edition was the main motivation behind the second edition. The first edition found its place as a text/reference book in the syllabus of several universities. Several improvements have been made in this edition; the obscurities in the earlier edition have been removed and several new topics have been added as per the AICTE model curriculum.
In Chapter 1, ‘Fuels’, the portion on renewable energy sources, which was just touched upon in the first edition, has been elaborately written; a descriptive study of nuclear fuels has been added along with chemical fuels. Chapter 2, ‘Water’, includes many new topics such as break point chlorination, defluoridation of water by Nalgonda technique and domestic waste water management. Chapter 3, ‘Corrosion’, has been revised. Several figures have been replaced and a myriad of examples on different types of corrosion both from day-to-day life and from industry have been introduced. Chapter 4, ‘Phase Rule’, the iron–carbon alloy system has been rewritten. Chapter 8, ‘Periodic Properties’, and Chapter 9, ‘Acid–Base, Oxidation–Reduction and Intermolecular Forces’, are new to this edition. Chapter 8 deals with the basic concepts of classification of elements, periodicity in properties, types of elements on the basis of their electronic configuration, periodic trends in properties like atomic and ionic radii, ionisation enthalpy, electron gain enthalpy, electronegativity, Fajan’s rule and oxidation states of elements of various groups; Chapter 9 discusses the different theories of acids and bases such as the Arrhenius theory, Bronsted–Lowry concept, solvent system definition of acids and bases, Lewis concept, hard–soft acids and bases, oxidation and reduction with its applications to the extraction of metals, Ellingham diagram, molecular interactions, real gases and critical phenomenon. Chapter 10, ‘Atomic Structure and Chemical Bonding’, covers new topics like Schrodinger wave equation, particle in a one- and three-dimensional box, Schrodinger wave equation for hydrogen and hydrogen like system, Huckel molecular orbital theory for conjugated system. Chapter 11, ‘Solid State’, has been augmented with the theory of semiconductors, superconductors and magnetic materials. Potential energy of surfaces, trajectories on potential energy surfaces and thermodynamic formulation of the transition state theory have been included in Chapter 13, ‘Chemical Kinetics’. In Chapter 15, ‘Thermodynamics’, and Chapter 16, ‘Electrochemistry’, several sign conventions have been changed in accordance with the latest IUPAC conventions. Several portions of these chapters have been rewritten to facilitate understanding. Several new topics have been added to Chapter 17, ‘Spectroscopy’; topics related to molecular spectroscopy missing in the earlier edition have been included. The new topics included are Franck–Condon principle, rotational (microwave) spectroscopy of diatomic molecules, vibrational rotational spectra of diatomic molecules. Raman spectroscopy and applications of NMR spectroscopy in magnetic resonance imaging has also been discussed. IR spectra of several compounds given in the first edition have been removed and the important absorption peaks have been tabulated.

Drugs and absolute configuration of organic compounds has been included in Chapter 19, ‘Fundamentals of Organic Chemistry’. Chapter 20, ‘Coordination Chemistry’, with topics like nomenclature, bonding and isomerism in coordination compounds, is again a new chapter in this edition. To contain the size of the book Chapter 21, ‘Basics of Environment Science’, has been removed from this edition.

Illustrations, new figures, numerical problems and scores of new examples have been included. I hope with all these changes, the book will meet the expectations of the students and teaching fraternity across the country. Although great care has been taken to make the book as error free as possible, yet ‘to err is human and to forgive is divine’. I extend apologies for the errors left inadvertently and look forward to the cooperation of the faculty and students in bringing these errors to my notice so that they can be rectified in future.