Despite reductions in the level of research activity in most fields which, for reasons of economic decline, have taken place in the U.S. during the last year or two, world progress in the fundamental aspects has continued actively. An important aspect of such recent work has been the use of nonaqueous solvents in studies on the constitution of the double-layer and electrochemical reactions. Interpretation of the behavior of electrode interfaces in such solvents demands more knowledge of the solvation properties of ions in nonaqueous media. Chapter 1 by Pad ova on "Ionic Solvation in Nonaqueous and Mixed Solvents" gives an up to date review of the present state of knowledge in this field, together with tabulations of data that are likely to be of quantitative value in further investigations of both homogeneous and heterogeneous electrochemistry in such media. Electrochemical studies of cathodic processes in nonaqueous solvents have, in recent years, revealed the role of solvated electrons. These are of interest in new approaches to reductive electro-organic synthesis. Similarly, the generation of hydrated electrons in photo cathodic processes is of great interest. In Chapter 2, by Conway, the conditions under which solvated electrons can arise in electrode processes are critically examined and the electro-organic reactions that hwe been investigated are reviewed. The supposed electro generation of hydrated electrons in the water solvent and as inter mediates in cathodic hydrogen evolution is shown to be unlikely.

The present volume contains five chapters covering areas of contemporary interest in the fields of electrolyte solutions, the state of solvent molecules at electrode surfaces, charged colloid interfaces, surface chemistry of oxide electrodes and electro chemistry, and bioelectrochemistry of charge transfer complexes. The first chapter, by Barthel, Wachter, and Gores, covers the topic of conductance of nonaqueous pro tic and aprotic electro lyte solutions. This field is not only of intrinsic interest in itself, illustrating the important departures of ion-transport behavior in organic solvents from that, more well known, in water, but the information and extensive new data presented in this chapter will be of interest to those working with nonaqueous alkali-metal batteries where the conductivity and ion-association behavior of electrolytes in various solvents other than water is of great importance. The second chapter is devoted to a very fundamental and ubiquitous aspect of electrochemistry of electrodes: the state of solvent molecules, adsorbed and oriented, at their surfaces. The role of solvent adsorption and orientation in double-layer proper ties, it will be recalled, remained poorly understood until the early 1960s. This chapter, by Trasatti, gives a thorough account of the present state of knowledge of solvent orientation at electrode interfaces and of the unsuspected (until recent years) role it plays in properties of the double layer and in determining the potential profile at charged metal surfaces in solution.

In the last decade, the evolution of electrochemistry away from concern with the physical chemistry of solutions to its more fruitful goal in the study of the widespread consequences of the transfer of electric charges across interphases has come to fruition. The turning of technology away from an onward rush, regardless, to progress which takes into account repercussions of techno logical activity on the environment, and the consequent need for a reduction and then termination of the injection of CO into 2 the atmosphere (greenhouse effect), together with a reckoning with air and water pollution in general, ensures a long-term need for advances in a basic knowledge of electrochemical systems, an increased technological use of which seems to arise from the environmental necessities. But a mighty change in attitude needs to spread among electro chemists (indeed, among all surface chemists) concerning the terms and level in which their field is discussed. The treatment of charge transfer reactions has often been made too vaguely, in terms, it seemed, of atom transfer, with the electron-transfer step, the essence of electrochemistry, an implied accompaniment to the transfer of ions across electrical double layers. The treatment has been in terms of classical mechanics, only tenable while inadequate questions were asked concerning the behavior of the electron in the interfacial transfer. No process demands a more exclusively quantal discussion than does electron transfer.

This volume maintains the series’ high standards, containing chapters covering topics such as the cathodic reduction of nitrate, and including discussion of product selectivity, current efficiency, and the thermodynamics and kinetics for the reactions studied.

The Volume will cover a broad range of topics in Electrochemistry in an authoritative manner by internationally renowned specialists. The topics include an overview of theoretical advances in quantitative treatment of solute-solvent interactions and an analysis of the formation mechanisms of porous silicon. Recent advances on the use of electrochemistry in medicine will be surveyed in a chapter by Dr. A. Vijh.

The text Modern Electrochemistry (authored by J. O'M. Bockris and A. K. N. Reddy and published by Plenum Press in 1970) was written between 1967 and 1969. The concept for it arose in 1962 in the Energy Conversion Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and it was intended to act as a base for interdisciplinary students and mature scientists~hemists, physicists, biologists, metallurgists, and engineers-who wanted to know about electrochemical energy conversion and storage. In writing the book, the stress, therefore, was placed above all on lucidity in teaching physical electrochemistry from the beginning. Although this fundamentally undergraduate text continues to find purchasers 20 years after its birth, it has long been clear that a modernized edition should be written, and the plans to do so were the origin of the present book. However, if a new Bockris and Reddy was to be prepared and include the advances of the last 20 years, with the same degree of lucidity as characterized the first one, the depth of the development would have to be well short of that needed by professional electrochemists.

Of the societal ills which are recognized as present in the Western countries during the 1970's, pollution of air and water is among the first. Whether the breathing of noxious gases acts biochemically as a source of mental irritation is not yet known. But it is not in doubt that reduction of the grime, smog, fouled water, and acrid air would lead to an increase in a feeling of well-being. Nor is it speculative to state that a reversal of the present trend to poison the atmosphere and the water is essential if man is to survive in a technological society. It was partly the lack of realization of the intrinsic nature of over potential in electrochemical reactions, * and hence the failure of the early fuel cells to come up to expectations, which led engineers at the turn of the century to rely upon the combustion of oil and coal for the production of energy, with the associated era of increasing atmospheric pollution.

This volume of Modern Aspects of Electrochemistry contains six chapters. The first four chapters are about phenomena of interest at the microscopic level and the last two are on phenomena at the macroscopic level. In the first chapter, Uosaki and Kita review various theoretical models that have been presented to describe the phenomena that occur at an electrolyte/ semiconductor interface under illumination. In the second chapter, Orazem and Newman discuss the same phenomena from a different point of view. In Chapter 3, Bogus lavsky presents state-of-the-art considerations of transmembrane potentials and other aspects of active transport in biological systems. Next, Burke and Lyons present a survey of both the theoretical and the experimental work that has been done on hydrous oxide films on several metals. The last two chapters cover the topics of the production of chlorine and caustic and the phenomena of electrolytic gas evol ution. In Chapter 5, Hine et al. describe the engineering aspects of the three processes used in the chi or-alkali industry, and in Chapter 6, Sides reviews the macroscopic phenomena of nucleation, growth, and detachment of bubbles, and the effect of bubbles on the conduc tivity of and mass transfer in electrolytes.