March 1, 2015 (Vol. 35, No. 5)
URL:
Rating:
Strong Points: Reference list of commonly used solvents
Weak Points: Some conversion calculators not useful, not much information overall
Platform:
iPad/iPhone
Cost:
Free
Summary:
A small app without a great depth of content, the Shimadzu UV app does provide a handy reference list of commonly used solvents in spectrophotometry. For the nine solvents listed (including water, methanol, acetone and hexane, among others) app users can quickly view the melting and boiling points, molecular formula, CAS number, and the lower limit of usable wavelength. Users can quickly swipe through the cards or bring up the menu to select a specific solvent. The other component of the app consists of conversion calculators. While some of the calculators are useful (such as the wavelength-to-wavenumber and pressure unit conversions), some of the other conversions are less useful because the units of measurement are too large to be of practical use in the laboratory (e.g. kilometers and miles instead of microns).
