Tiny technology

Understanding nanomaterials
Malkiat Johal
CRC Press
2011 | 327pp | £38.99 (PB)
ISBN 9781420073102
Reviewed by David Smith

There is no doubt that nanoscience is increasingly underpinning new developments in modern technology.  As the concepts of nanotechnology, which involve working at length scales of 1-100 nm, become increasingly dominant, it becomes ever more important that we educate our undergraduate students in the fundamentals of the subject. These two books provide different kinds of resources for educators interested in incorporating nanoscience into their undergraduate chemistry programs. 

Understanding nanomaterials offers a useful overview of nanomaterials, which could easily be adapted into an undergraduate taught programme at a final year level, or make a good foundation course for graduate students. It focuses primarily on a physical chemistry approach to the subject, considering intermolecular interactions and self-assembly, processes on surfaces, characterisation methods, and some types and uses of nanomaterials.

I suspect that many physical chemists would enjoy building their teaching around the well-explained material in this book, and that students would find it clear and informative. In particular the end of chapter questions are valuable. This book clearly begins to demonstrate how nanochemistry can be taught as a coherent discipline, albeit without some of the synthetic and molecular design aspects of the subject.