This book is intended for materials science and engineering undergraduate students who have taken a course on kinetics in physical chemistry. It intends to give in-depth knowledge in the area of kinetics of the formation and reactivity of a variety of materials. The book came out as a result of rich experiences gained by the author in teaching a course on materials science and engineering for more than 30 years in three institutions. The preface of the book summarizes the main features of the book, with an emphasis on treatment at atomistic and macroscopic levels, solutions to diffusion-controlled processes, derivation of the Boltzmann distribution equation, treating the glass transition as a relaxation process, and the Kirkendall effect applied to metals, polymers, and soft materials. Some of these topics include industrial examples.
The book is divided into five sections. The first section introduces the reader to kinetics in materials science and engineering with an overview of its relationship to thermodynamics. The second section on reaction kinetics is divided into four chapters, with coverage of processes in materials, second order and multiple reactions, and temperature dependence of the reaction rate as applied to homogeneous and heterogeneous reactions. The next section covers phase transformations by discussing surface energies from considerations involving the existence of broken bonds in metals and polymers. This section contains extensive discussion on freezing point depression of small particles, interfacial energies, surface segregation, and surface tension.
The fourth section includes five chapters: (1) fundamentals of diffusion, (2) atomistics of diffusion, (3) steady-state diffusion, (4) solutions to Fick’s second law, and (5) diffusion with finite boundaries. This section discusses the thermodynamics of phase transitions, reconstructive transformations, and nucleation and growth applied to homogeneous and heterogeneous cases, as well as diffusion phenomenon. The last section considers different types of fluxes, forces, and interdiffusion, with a treatment on nonideal thermodynamic behavior of solid and liquid solutions. The utility of the book is enhanced by a subject index and two appendices containing symbols.
The book provides every derivation and brings out the kinetic processes in materials science and engineering in an understandable way. As a teacher who has taught and is teaching courses in materials science and engineering and who has performed research in the area of electrochemical kinetics, I find this book extraordinary in all respects in giving in-depth mathematical derivations. However, the emphasis given on electrochemical kinetics applied to transient techniques using Fick’s laws is minimal, except for dealing with ion conductance.
This is an excellent book, and although it should not be used as the primary text for a kinetics course (no mention of the fundamentals and applications of kinetics, such as pulse radiolysis; fluorescence; photolysis; temperature-jump, pressure jump, or stopped flow techniques; electron spin resonance; or nuclear magnetic resonance), I strongly recommend it as supplemental text for a general course introducing materials science and engineering at the graduate level.
Reviewer: K.S.V. Santhanam is a professor in the School of Chemistry and Materials Science at Rochester Institute of Technology, USA.
