Vogel’s Qualitative Inorganic Analysis (7th Edition)

Book Preface

The seventh edition of Vogel’s Qualitative Inorganic Analysis contains some new material, which has been added in response to readers’ comments.

First of all, Chapter 5 was extended to include more on preliminary tests, dissolution and fusion of samples. This will help users who wish to tackle real samples – industrial, agricultural, environmental, etc. Furthermore, atomic spectrometric tests have been added to the reactions of metal ions, as the necessary instrumentation is nowadays commonly found in laboratories; testing for metals in this way can be carried out quickly and reliably. Only the essential details are given – fuel, wavelength, light source as well as preparation of standards. It was felt necessary to add a short section on the theory and instrumentation of atomic spectrometry.

A number of health and hazard warnings have also been included. Nomenclature (especially that of organic reagents) has been modified so that readers should be able to find such chemicals in modern catalogues. Figures have been updated, though I was reluctant to change them to show only full-glass apparatus (as some have suggested), because this can be quite expensive and beyond the budgets of certain users. Instead, I have given information on commercially available all-glass devices in the text. To save space, preparations of reagents have been removed from the main text; the reader will find them in the Appendix.