Microwave heating as a Tool for Sustainable Chemistry

Edited by Nicholas Leadbeater, CRC Press, 2010, price £95

This excellent new book is a multi-author work, edited by one of the foremost experts on microwaves. It includes an outstanding chapter from Jonathan D Moseley of Astra Zeneca on Microwave Heating as a Tool for Process Chemistry (45 pages).  In this chapter commercially available equipment is discussed along with practical considerations, particularly for scale up. Then examples of scale up using the various pieces of equipment are described in detail.  Finally, reaction optimisation and reaction understanding are discussed in the context of microwaves.  In the section on recent developments, continuous processing using microwaves is also discussed.  Overall this is a book you should read and preferably buy for your laboratory (or library if it still exists)!