Environmental Surfaces and Interfaces from the Nanoscale to the Global Scale

Environmental Surfaces and Interfaces from the Nanoscale to the Global Scale Patricia A. Maurice. John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken, NJ. 2009. $115.00. 441 pp. Hardcover. ISBN 978-0-470-40036-4.

Patricia A. Maurice has written a timely and comprehensive textbook that emphasizes the importance of environmental surfaces (minerals, humic substances, microbes, and plants) and interfacial processes in affecting reactivity and processes in the environment. One of the strengths of the book is the emphasis on both spatial (from the nanoscale to the global) and temporal scales and the need to integrate the scales if one is to accurately predict and model important environmental processes.

The first three chapters provide background information, including fundamental chemical and thermodynamic and kinetic concepts (Chapter 1), the hydrological cycle (Chapter 2), and minerals (Chapter 3) important in environmental surface chemistry. Chapter 1 provides information on activities and equilibrium constants. The discussion on kinetics is brief and would be stronger if additional information were provided on time scales of environmental processes and more emphasis placed on models that are appropriate for heterogeneous natural...