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05/23/2006 -
The Organometallic Chemistry of the Transition Metals, Fourth Edition (2005)
by Robert H. Crabtree
ISBN 0-471-66256-9. Wiley Interscience, Hoboken, New Jersey. 2005. Hardcover. 546 pages. $94.95.
| REVIEWED BY: | Gary Vardon, Julian Productions
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The Organometallic Chemistry of the Transition Metals by Professor Robert Crabtree is one impressive and compressive book. It is very professionally done. Such features as a list of abbreviations, problems with solutions, and numerous tables and figures make this volume a valuable acquisition. Like other advanced books on chemistry, this book includes many tables, figures, and diagrams. They are needed to understand the subject. Crabtree has done well in providing diagrams and tables to clarify the subject, and the book is amply documented. A typical chapter has 40 or more references. Reputable books and journals are cited, such as Organometallics, Advanced Organometallic Chemistry, and Coordination Chemistry Review. These are just a few of the many references cited. Crabtree is a frequent contributor and has written many papers on organometallic chemistry. He is really a master chemist, and his knowledge is well demonstrated in this book. His style, while not light and lively, is professional and correct. The Organometallic Chemistry of the Transition Metals stretches the reader's mind, which is what a science text should do. It provides numerous profound chemical insights, some of which will escape a reader without a good chemistry background. A few samples of Crabtree's writing follow: "First-row metals have lower M-L bond strengths and crystal field splittings compared to their second- and third-row analogs." Another sentence from a different chapter follows: "Moving to the left of C, the boryl group-BR2, has an empty p orbital and so is able to accept back-bonding electrons from a late transition metal." Many major insights can be gained from reading this book, starting from page one. A few of the many profound insights from Crabtree follow. They are paraphrased for conciseness and numbered to show separation. They are in no particular order.
1. There is a difference between inner and outer sphere complexes.
2. The chemistry of many ligands changes greatly on complexation
3. Chemistry will be increasingly influenced by biology.
4. Hydrides are key reactive species.
This review would have to be book size to do full justice to all the insights in this volume. It helps to understand the vocabulary, methods, and concepts of chemistry to fully appreciate this book, and reading it will aid markedly in understanding the vocabulary, methods, and concepts of chemistry. Some of the methods adroitly covered by Crabtree include hydrogen, carbon, and dynamic nuclear magnetic resonance, infrared spectroscopy, spin saturation transfer, isotopic perturbation of resonance, and crystallography. Crabtree opens the book with an introduction. That in itself is routine. But the key point to note is that the introduction actually provides an excellent introduction to organometallic chemistry. Getting off to a good start from page one is a strong point of this book. From there, Crabtree does not let the reader down. This book stays interesting and goes from one significant subject to another. These include a multitude of reactions including reductions, insertions, eliminations, oxidations, and additions. Also interesting are descriptions of applications of organometallic chemistry. Catalysis, clusters, organic synthesis, bioorganometallic chemistry, and much more are written about well by the illustrious Crabtree. Organometallic Chemistry is written for people who have some background in chemistry, especially inorganic and organic chemistry, and it compares well with similar books.
For more on The Organometallic Chemistry of the Transition Metals, Fourth Edition, visit the Wiley Interscience web site. |
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