Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook

This book contains more useful information in one place than any other source for chemical engineers. If your are in the feild or are a student, you will find this book to be necessary for almost any job. I recommend it to all chem-Es.

The same 7th edition (1997), but printed in 1999 and accompanied of a CD with the entire text (in Adobe Acrobat format) can be bought by essentially the same price as a "Platimum Edition"; a much better deal. Beware of the CD-only version; you'll have to read 3000 pages in two columns on your screen!.

Perry's Handbook has been found indispensable by chemical engineers, and a wide variety of other engineers and scientists, through six previous editions spanning more than sixty years. The NST/Engineers, Inc. reviewer, a Ph.D., PE favors the hardbound book as a desk reference, whereas he favors the CD format (ISBN# 0071344128) where a laptop or copying text or calculations are required. Users familiar with previous editions of Perry's will find additional text sections, tables, and figures. The reviewer did not detect deletions of any required material. You will notice the increased use of SI units. Section 1, of thirty Handbook sections, "Conversion Factors and Mathematical Symbols", provides a rescue line for those of us much more accustomed to U.S., British, and older Metric units and who are not fully conversant with S.I. units. The first one-third of the Handbook lays the theoretical groundwork for a fuller understanding of its final two-thirds. Section 2 provides physical properties data, including tables of constants for properties' correlations covering wide temperature ranges. Methods for the prediction and correlation of physical properties are explained. Section 3 summarizes mathematics through differential equations and statistics. Sections 4 through 7 may be considered short texts on "Thermodynamics", "Heat and Mass Transfer", "Fluid and Particle Dynamics", and "Reaction Kinetics". In its eighty-four double column text pages, Section 8 covers the "Fundamentals of Process Dynamics and Control". It includes model predictive control, process optimization, unit operations control, process measurements, and concludes with controllers, final control elements, and regulators. Section 9, "Process Economics", takes the reader through calculations involved in investment and profitability decisions, cost control, and cost estimation. Starting with Section 10, "Transport and Storage of Fluids", and for most of the following twenty sections, the chemical engineering unit operations, details of more specialized theories and operating practices, calculation methods, interface studies between chemical engineering and other disciplines (i.e., Biochemical Engineering and Waste Management), and data specific to the topic being presented are given.As previously stated, these latter sections, about two-thirds of the book, build upon an understanding of the fundamentals presented earlier. For example, Section 10; Section 11, "Heat Transfer Equipment"; Section 12, "Psychrometry, Evaporative Cooling, and Solids Drying"; Section 13, "Distillation"; Section 14, "Gas Absorption"; Section 15, "Liquid-Liquid Extraction"; Section 16, "Adsorption and Ion Exchange"; Section 17, "Gas-Solid Operations and Equipment"; and Section 18, "Liquid-Solid Operations and Equipment"; build on an understanding of Section 4, "Thermodynamics", Section 5, "Heat and Mass Transfer", and Section 6 "Fluid and Particle Dynamics". Howev

From steam tables to fracture mechanics, this book has everything from constants to theory. A must for any student or practicing engineer.

Perry has outdone himself once again. The seventh edition is even more of a show-stopper than the previous editions. I read this book from cover to cover in one sitting, unable to put it down for a moment, not even to relieve myself! The molecular weights were so accurate and the heats of reaction made my spine tingle. Once I reached the section discussing distillation and tray efficiencies I new I was hooked. I won't give away the ending but it's definitely a shocker. Bravo to Mr. Perry's and I am counting the days to the release of your 9th edition!