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Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook, Eighth Edition Don W. Green and Robert H. Perry, McGraw-Hill New York, NY, 2,400 pages, $199, Oct. 2007, ISBN: 978-0-07-142294-9
"Perry's" is many things. It's a collection of facts, theories, drawings of equipment, good advice - and, of course, correlations. Chemical engineers are famous for correlating virtually everything.
Perry's dates back to a decision by DuPont 80 years ago to help the chemical industry by providing more of a technical base. The first edition came out in 1934, with most of the authors from industry, and one-third of those from DuPont.
The Eighth Edition contains some improvements over the seventh (which was issued in 1997). For example, in Chapter 2, the increases in transport property data and the increased discussion of prediction of physical properties are welcome. The inclusion of material on salt dome storage in Chapter 10 is also appropriate, as is the inclusion of wet surface air coolers in Chapter 12. Other very useful additions are the material on distillation column internals in Chapter 14 and the greatly expanded information on extractors in Chapter 15. I also like...