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some important issues and makes some assertions that do not appear to be supported by his research. For example, Steinhilper claims that remanufacturing creates a win-win situation for both original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and remanufacturers. While some OEMs have or will become involved in remanufacturing, and remanufacturing may provide some new opportunities for OEMs in terms of larger markets for new parts, dismissing the concerns of OEMs such as increased competition and pressure to redesign products is too simplistic. A more cautious approach would be to consider the impacts of remanufacturing on OEMs on a sectorby-sector basis, and to identify this as another area warranting further research. Similarly, there appears to be little basis for Steinhilpers claims that remanufacturing workers like their jobs and are environmentally motivated. Unfortunately, the book suffers from poor editing, which makes it somewhat clunky to read. It is evident that the book was written or translated by a non-native English speaker, and there are numerous examples throughout the book where careful editing would improve word choices, sentence structure, punctuation, and overall readability. Nonetheless, Remanufacturing: The Ultimate Form of Recycling is an important contribution to the growing body of literature on this topic, and one of the first to provide a hands-on look at actual businesses and processes involved in remanufacturing. Informed by extensive industrial engineering experience and convinced of the various merits of remanufacturing, Steinhilpers work effectively challenges us to develop an integrated understanding of the potential technical, economic, and environmental linkages and benefits offered by remanufacturing. Susan Helms and James Goldstein Tellus Institute Boston, MA, USA

References
Bollinger, L.1981. Remanufacturing survey findings. Cambridge, MA: Center for Policy Alternatives, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lund, Robert. 1984. Remanufacturing. Technology Review, February/March.
I I I

Ullmanns Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, 6th Edition, by Thomas Kellersohn, managing editor. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH, 1998 Electronic Release, CDROM, ISSN 1435-6007.1 It is easy to see how electronic publishing is and will continue to be a boon for the publishers of extensive, technical encyclopedias of all sorts. Often comprising over two dozen large volumes in print form, these encyclopedias must be exceedingly difficult to update during the years between editions, and users face the irritating chore of searching for and referring to updated materials in addition to those they consult in the primary printed volumes. With electronic publishing, issuers of these encyclopedias must certainly find publishing a new edition easier and much less expensive, and the preparation and dissemination of intra-edition revisions and updates to be more closely akin to the development of future editions than the nettlesome task of putting out print articles that have to be effectively linked to the original volumes of the current edition. While the prospect seems promising, it remains to be seen just how much advantage there is for users of these electronic editions. In 1998, Wiley-VCH issued its sixth edition of Ullmanns Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, an edition published only in electronic form. For decades, Ullmanns has been one of the preeminent sources of comprehensive information about industrial chemistry, chemical processes, and chemical technology. Like its chief competitorthe Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology (Kroschwitz 19911998)Ullmanns topics range from the economics to the reaction chemistry to the key uses of hundreds of industrial chemicals. The focus of the encyclopedia is, of course, on the processes for manufacturing industrial chemicals, but thorough treatment is

Note
1. A report on an Argonne National Laboratory sponsored research project. The report is available from: Professor Robert T. Lund, Manufacturing Engineering Department, Boston University, 15 St. Marys St., Boston, MA 02215.

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given to other manufacturing processes in which reaction chemistry is an essential element e.g., the production of steel and of wood pulp. The previous edition of Ullmannsthe fifth editionhas the triple distinction of being the first published in English, the first to be additionally published in a CD-ROM format, and, as it turns out, the last to be published in print. That edition gives us some idea of the physical size of the encyclopedia:it has 37 bound volumes containing 27,000 printed pages, and there are over 800 major articles (written by some 3,000 authors), 10,000 tables, and 20,000 figures. Wiley-VCH is quite justified in its claim of attractive features in the electronic edition. Although it takes some adjustment for those from a generation used to hauling heavy print volumes to the library table, the advantages of a computer-based encyclopedia are quite dazzling. Probably most important is the ability to search for words, phrases, and numbers anywhere in the text, to receive a list of hits in seconds, and to have direct, immediate access to the text in any of the locations found. Similarly useful is the ability, using links, to go quickly to and return from related references anywhere in the encyclopedia. Those not content solely with electronic display can print sections of material easily and transfer elements to other computer applications readilye.g., to Microsoft Word for Windows. It is arguable whether the loss of physical contact with book pages, the availability of only a few square inches of material at a time, and the requirement to view material on a vertical screen make the use of the electronic version less satisfying. This reviewer suspects, however, that the vastly more rapid and thorough access to pertinent references and the likely improvements to be seen in the computer-human interface will make these old habits and expectations fade painlessly into museums. Even the loss of the multiple volumes that make it generally convenient for several researchers to use a single set of print encyclopedias at the same time is taken care of by the networking capability of Ullmanns. That is, a single copy of the Ullmanns CD-ROM can be accessed simultaneously by several users on a local network, probably with much less mutual interference than is encountered with print editions.

There is at least one concern about the electronic edition, however, that deserves mentioning. While the tables and figures in this edition are extraordinarily consistenti.e., tables are very similar to each other in layout and typeface and the same can be said for figuresboth are quite austere in appearance and content. This austerity is possibly brought about by limitations on the amount of detail that can be shown on present-day computer screen technology or possibly by limitations in the storage capacity of todays CD-ROMs. But, whatever the reason, longtime users of such technological works in print will readily notice the difference and possibly regret the loss of detail and additional information that small, diverse typefaces and halftone illustrations make possible. It should be noted that Ullmanns is very well described and contrasted with several other chemical-technology encyclopedias in the useful book, How to Find Chemical Information (Maizell 1998). Many searches for chemical-process informationincluding those that would be aided by consulting Ullmannswould do well to begin with this book, that is a comprehensive descriptive index of chemical information sources of all sorts, from abstracts to journals, online services, and government sources to encyclopedias and other reference books. The longtime success and popularity of Ullmann s strongly suggest that a general reviewer should have little to complain about in terms of the substance of the encyclopedia. In fact, a review of any of the 800 articles would leave any investigator in awe of the copious amount of technical data and process description. There remain, however, questions about whether users with special needs will find the publication fully satisfactory. One group with a growing and increasingly urgent need for technological information are those involved with industrial ecology. In approaching manufacturing operations, industrial ecologists concern themselves with a number of critical considerations, among them: (a) the energy intensity and energy efficiency of processes; (b) the nature and amounts of input materials, gaseous emissions, liquid releases, and solid residues; (c) the consumption and/or oncethrough use of water; (d) recycling feasibility;
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and (e) the land-use footprint of an operation (Graedel and Allenby 1995) in addition to details about any green chemistry innovations that might deserve exposition. While it is true that no single information source must be capable of satisfying the needs of all users, it is becoming quite obvious that industrial ecology considerations of the type listed above are becoming of more than just marginal interest to those exploring or evaluating industrial-chemical technologies through the use of a source such as Ullmanns. In fact, there must be few situations nowadays in which serious concerns about energy and water use and other environmental implications are not among the most significant elements considered in looking at industrial-chemical processes. For that reason, it is entirely appropriate to weigh the direct usefulness of such an encyclopedia to those involved in environmental investigations, especially industrial ecologists. Drawing comprehensive conclusions about an encyclopedia is a dangerous thing for a reviewer to do who cannot possibly have examined even one-tenth of the entire work. At the same time, it is reasonable to speculate on the conclusions that might be drawn by a narrow coterie of potential users by examining a selection of topics that might be of interest to them. In the case of industrial ecologists, it would not be surprising to find them interested in articles addressing: (1) the chemical materials representing the ten highest amounts of potentially carcinogenic air emissions, 2 (2) the articles addressing several major chemicals using some of those ten potentially carcinogenic materials as raw materials,3 and (3) the articles on the compounds of three prominent carcinogenic heavy metals, namely, arsenic, cadmium, and chromium. Because the first of these categories includes five chlorinated hydrocarbons which were treated in a single article, it was possible to examine the treatment of the 18 indicated topics by referring to only 14 articles. So much interest is focused nowadays on environmental concerns that new technological problems and new technological solutions seem to arise every week. For that reason, industrial ecologists using a source such as Ullmanns would be quite concerned about the timeliness, the freshness, of material in the articles consulted.
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The fundamental chemistry and thermodynamics may change little if any over many years, but discoveries influencing environmental impact shift rapidly. Of the 14 articles, seven are quite up to date (as indicated by source references with dates after 1995), three are of moderate age (the most recent references being from the late 1980s or early 1990s), and four are arguably quite old (with the most recent references coming from the late 1970s or early 1980s). It was particularly surprising to find that the large article on chlorinated hydrocarbons appeared to haveout of over 1,000 citationsnone more recent than 1986. Because all the chemical materials of interest here are potentially carcinogenic, investigators would very likely be seeking recent technological information and be suspicious of information that had not been significantly updated for more than ten years. The concern here is not that toxicological and environmental impact data might be out of date there are far more appropriate sources for such hazard informationbut that not much information about how the state-of-the-art design or operation of industrial processes takes recent environmental impact information into account is made available. One also notices that the articles seem to manifest the degree of their attention to environmental concerns by the number and the heading titles of applicable sections. For example, some articles appear to address only such concerns as human health and safety in a section on toxicology. In other articles, one seesin addition to sections on toxicologyinformative sections on environmental protection, environmental aspects, and ecotoxicology. This unevenness goes beyond titling. Some of the articles, such as the one on arsenic, go so far as to discuss the potentially harmful aspects of process byproducts or, such as the article on cadmium, to discuss the general environmental dissemination of pollutants or, such as the article on formaldehyde, to present a reasonably full discussion of the leakage of formaldehyde from home building products. Several others, such as the article on acetaldehyde, devote only a few lines to emissions and pollution prevention. The considerably less generous treatment of increasingly important environmental aspects

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that one finds in many of the articles stands in distinct contrast to the enormous quantity of information about the processes for producing these ten materials. There are, for example, detailed descriptions of over 40 different commerciallevel methods for producing these ten chemicals. One hopes that as the encyclopedia evolves, more thorough attention can be paid to how processes are structured and operated to deal with the potential for environmental consequences. Another topic of great interest to investigators of industrial ecology is the quantity of energy, water, and certain other materials flowing into, through, and out of industrial processes. For the industrial ecologist, Ullmanns would be particularly frustrating on this topic. On the one hand, the encyclopedia does an excellent job of describing qualitatively the flows of these elements. For example, there is plenty of thermodynamic and reaction-energy information to let one know whether a process is extremely or modestly endothermic or exothermic, and the nature of associated energy-consuming separation steps is clearly apparent. The process descriptions and the sheaves of process flow charts make it quite clear where and why water is needed for either process or cooling purposes. Further, the lists of raw materials, reagents, catalysts, and byproducts involved in the processes seem to be very complete. What is almost entirely missing is the quantification of these flows, a matter of profound interest when considering environmental implications. Even for those material flows that the encyclopedia has chosen to report, there is a significant problem with timeliness in some of the articles. It is hard to see, for example, how having year-by-year production figures from the 1960s, 1970s, and even the 1980s without comparable figures for any years in the 1990s can be useful to anyone needing production flow information. Obviously, the magnitude of most of these quantities at a particular facility would depend almost entirely on engineering decisions that had been made for it. For all that, approximations of such quantities as they apply to generalized processes would go far in serving the needs of industrial ecologists.

We have in Ullmanns, therefore, one of the best reference sources available for surveying the traditionally key characteristics of the thousands of processes involved in manufacturing chemicals. The electronic sixth edition has greatly improved the access to and usefulness of this reference work. At the same time, we see a number of ways in which the encyclopedia, with its present content, would not entirely satisfy investigators from the field of industrial ecology, whose needs for process information would be no less appropriate to such a reference. Those needs are, at least in editions to date, not adequately addressed. The very existence of electronic publishing would make correction of such deficiencies feasible. Let us hope it makes it likely to occur. William B. Ellis School of Forestry and Environmental Studies Yale University New Haven, CT, USA

Notes
1. The 1998 Release reviewed here is no longer available. The 1999 Release has the ISBN number 3-527-20163-7 and its list price is U.S. $1,150. 2. According to the U.S. EPAs 1993 Toxics release inventory, public release data, these are acetaldehyde, benzene, butadiene, carbon tetrachloride, chloroform, dichloroethane, dichloromethane, formaldehyde, styrene, and tetrachloroethylene. 3. Those selected are acetic acid, ethylbenzene, styrene-butadiene rubber, urea-formaldehyde resins, and polystyrene.

References
Graedel, T. E., and B. R. Allenby. 1995. Industrial ecology. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall. Kroschwitz, J. I., ed. 19911998. Kirk-Othmer encyclopedia of chemical technology, 4th ed. New York: Wiley. Maizell, R. E. 1998. How to find chemical information: A guide for practicing chemists, educators, and students, 3rd ed. New York: Wiley.

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