Perry’s set for 9th edition

PERRY’S – the handbook known within the discipline as the bible of chemical engineering – will be published in a new 9^th edition later this year. We caught up with the book’s editors to find out more.

Editors Don Green, emeritus distinguished professor of chemical and petroleum engineering, and Marylee Southard, associate professor of chemical and petroleum engineering, both at the University of Kansas, told us what is new.

What are the key updates?

All 25 sections of the Handbook have been updated to make the information current. The key updates are: a new section “Bioreactions and Bioprocessing” has been added in response to the significant large-scale growth of commercial processes for non-food products since the second half of the 20th century.

The solids handling operations and equipment section has been rewritten by industrial experts in the field. The thermodynamics fundamentals section is designed to be more practical and less theoretical for the practising engineer and the student pursuing applications.

The new and updated chemical property data produced by the Design Institute for Physical Properties (DIPPR) of AIChE is included in the data section of the book.

Who should buy the book?

The Handbook is designed to be useful for all. For students, it serves as a reference book to supplement basic course material. For recent graduates, it contains schematics, examples and further references; useful as a refresher on the fundamentals, as well as essential background on commercial chemical processes and equipment. These same features appeal to academics and practising engineers. Engineers and scientists of all experience levels will value the latest set of chemical and physical property data for 340+ compounds generated by the DIPPR/AIChE consortium.

What will the book enable readers to do having read it?

It is not designed as a book to be read cover-to-cover; it is a reference book that allows a student, academic or practising engineer to easily and quickly locate reliable information needed to address multiple facets of the technical issue at hand, providing fundamental information about a process, or a type of processing equipment, or data required to do a necessary calculation.

The book in numbers

The 9th edition of Perry’s Chemical Engineers’ Handbook will be available globally from the 31 August and will cost US$199. It will consist of 2,352 pages, contributed by more than 150 industry leaders and containing more than 700 detailed illustrations.

The first edition, edited by John Perry, a chemist and chemical engineer at DuPont, was published in 1934. Updated editions were published in 1941, 1950, 1963, 1973, 1984, 1997 and 2007/8.

Perry’s editors

Green has edited the 6^th, 7^th and 8^th editions of Perry’s. He holds a BS in petroleum engineering from the University of Tulsa, and MS and PhD degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Oklahoma. Southard is a new editor for the 9^th edition. She holds BS, MS and PhD Degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Kansas. Her work in inorganic chemicals production has included process engineering, design and product development. She has consulted for production and research companies. She teaches process design and project economics.