Environmental Chemistry

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Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research

University of Misan

College of Engineering

Civil engineering Department

Environmental Chemistry

BY

Fatima Yassin Mahood


Hussein Hikmat Ali
Hassan Muayad Qadir

First stage
Civil engineering Department
Group: A

Supervised by

Maryam Jabr Jaafar

2024
Introduction
Environmental chemistry is that branch of chemical science that deals with the
production, transport, reactions, effects, and fates of chemical species in the water, air,
terrestrial, and biological environment and the effects of human activities thereon.

The definition of environmental chemistry is illustrated with a typical pollutant species. In


this case sulfur in coal is oxidized to sulfur dioxide gas that is emitted to the atmosphere.
The sulfur dioxide gas can be oxidized to sulfuric acid by atmospheric chemical processes,
fall back to Earth as acid rain, affect a receptor such as plants, and end up in a "sink"
such as a body of water or soil.

Environmental chemistry is not a new discipline. Excellent work has been done in this
field for the greater part of a century. Until about 1970, most of this work was done in
academic departments or industrial groups other than those primarily concerned with
chemistry. Much of it was performed by people whose basic education was not in
chemistry. Thus, when pesticides were synthesized, biologists observed firsthand some of
the less desirable consequences of their use. When detergents were formulated, sanitary
engineers were startled to see sewage treatment plant aeration tanks vanish under meter-
thick blankets of foam, while limnologists wondered why previously normal lakes
suddenly became choked with stinking cyanobacteria. Despite these long standing
environmental effects, and even more recent and serious problems, such as those from
hazardous wastes, relatively few chemists have been exposed to material dealing with
environmental chemistry as part of their education.
Environmental Resource:
An environmental resource is any material, service, or information from the environment
that is valuable to society. This can refer to anything that people find useful in their
environs, or surroundings. Food from plants and animals, wood for cooking, heating, and
building, metals, coal, and oil are all environmental resources. Clean land, air, and water
are environmental resources, as are the abilities of land, air, and water to absorb society's
waste products. Heat from the sun, transportation and recreation in lakes, rivers, and
oceans, a beautiful view, or the discovery of a new species are all environmental resources.

Environment consists of four segments:


1- Atmosphere:
The layer of air surrounding the earth at a height of around 1600 km and it consists of
many gases is known as atmosphere. The major constituents of the atmosphere are
nitrogen, oxygen and water vapor. The minor constituents are argon and carbon dioxide;
the trace components include inert gases like methane.
2- Hydrosphere:
Hydrosphere consist of all the types of resources having water like lakes, ground water,
seas, rivers, oceans, polar ice caps and reservoirs.
3- Lithospheres:
Landmass available on the surface of earth excluding the water bodies is part of
Lithosphere. It is solid component of earth having rocks, mountains and soil. The solid,
thick, uppermost part of earth is called crust.
4- Biosphere:
Biosphere includes all the living organisms and their interactions with the atmosphere,
lithosphere, environment, and hydrosphere. For example, levels of oxygen and carbon
dioxide in atmosphere depend on the plants and trees.

Chemical Analysis in Environmental Chemistry:


One of environmental chemistry’s major challenges is the determination of the nature and
quantity of specific pollutants in the environment. Thus, chemical analysis is a vital first
step in environmental chemistry research. The difficulty of analyzing for many
environmental pollutants can be awesome. Significant levels of air pollutants may consist
of less than a microgram per cubic meter of air. For many water pollutants, one part per
million by weight (essentially 1 milligram per liter) is a very high value. Environmentally
significant levels of some pollutants may be only a few parts per trillion. Thus, it is obvious
that the chemical analyses used to study some environmental systems require a very low
limit of detection. However, environmental chemistry is not the same as analytical
chemistry, which is only one of the many sub disciplines that are involved in the study of
the chemistry of the environment. Although a “brute-force” approach to environmental
control, involving attempts to monitor each environmental niche for every possible
pollutant, increases employment for chemists and raises sales of analytical instruments, it
is a wasteful way to detect and solve environmental problems, degenerating into a
mindless exercise in the collection of marginally useful numbers. Those responsible for
environmental protection must be smarter than that. In order for chemistry to make a
maximum contribution to the solution of environmental problems, the chemist must work
toward an understanding of the nature, reactions, and transport of chemical species in the
environment. Analytical chemistry is a fundamental and crucial part of that endeavor.
ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION AND POLLUTANTS:
It is caused by the addition of any undesirable substance to water, soil, or air, naturally or
by human activities to such an extent that its adverse effects are observed on human
beings, animals, and plants.
Contaminants are substances which are not present in nature but are introduced into the
environment by human activities and have adverse effects on environment. For example,
methyl isocyanate (MIC).
Receptors are the medium affected by the pollutants. Human eyes are receptors for smoke
released by automobiles which causes irritation in the eyes.
Sink is medium which interacts with the long lived pollutants and removes the pollution.
Sea water acts as the sink for carbon dioxide. The main causes of pollution are increase in
population and depletion of natural resources, industrialization, urbanization, and
deforestation.

Types of Pollutants
1- Primary pollutants: The pollutants after their formation, enter the environment and
remain unchanged. For example, CO, SO2, NO, NO2.
2- Secondary pollutants: They are formed as the result of the chemical reactions
between primary pollutants present in atmosphere and those in the hydrosphere.
For example, peroxy acyl nitrate.
3- Biodegradable pollutants: This type of pollutants can be easily decomposed with
help of microorganisms and are not harmful. For example sewage, domestic, cow
dung.
4- Non-biodegradable pollutants: The pollutants that cannot be decomposed, and their
presence is very harmful for animals and human beings. For example, mercury,
DDT.

Types of Pollution:
1. Physical Pollution
2. Geological Pollution
3. Chemical Pollution
4. Mechanical Pollution
5. Biological Pollution
6. Destructive Pollution
Air pollution: This is caused by the addition of undesirable substances into the
atmosphere. It is of the following two types:
1- Tropospheric pollution: - It is caused by gaseous air pollutants like SO2, NO2, CO2,
or H2S.
2- Stratospheric pollution: - The damage to the ozone layer by the action of
compounds like nitric acid and chloroform carbons constitute this particular type of
pollution.

Some common air pollutants are as follows:


1. Metals like lead and mercury.
2. Oxides of nitrogen like N2O, NO.
3. Oxides of Sulphur like SO2.
4. Most of air pollution is caused by automobiles in which the carbon fuels undergo
incomplete combustion and liberate carbon monoxide.
Chlorofluoro carbons (freons).
5. Hydrocarbons like methane and butane.
6. Oxides of carbon like CO and CO2.
7. Organic pollutants like benzopyrene, biocides.
8. Acid rain: The pH of rainwater is normally 5.6 due to dissolution of CO2 in it.

Acid rain is due to the large-scale emission of acidic gaseous oxides (NO2, SO2 etc) into
atmosphere by the thermal power plants, industries and automobiles. The oxides of
sulphur and nitrogen dissolve in rain water forming sulphuric acid and nitric acid
resulting in acid rain.

Controlling air pollution:


1. Auto-mobiles must be fitted with tune ups (for high air fuel ratio) and catalytic
convertors (to change NO2 into N2O5 and CO into CO2)
2. Fly ash (coal-thermal plants) should be removed using wet method and should be
used in the building materials.
3. Clean and green, environment friendly (ecofriendly) technology must be developed.
4. Bagasse and Rice husk should not be used as fuel.
5. By dissolving or absorbing harmful gases and chemicals.
6. Petrol without lead and Diesel with less ‘S’ must be used.
7. Industries must be situated far away from urban area.
8. Use of vehicles should be limited.
9. A large-scale plantation of trees must be carried out.
10.Industrial wastes can be checked by using wet scrubbers, chimneys, cyclone
collector’s bag filters, electro static precipitators etc.

Types of Water Pollution and Pollutants:


Effects of Water Pollution
1. Use of polluted water by animal and human waste cause diseases like cholera,
diarrhoea, typhoid and jaundice.
2. Polluted water is non-potable.
3. Tourists avoid dirty beaches. Some water pollutants and their side effects are
disscussed in the following two categories:
4. Aquatic life is damaged.

Types of sand or soil pollution:


1- Positive Soil Pollution: It causes decrease in soil productivity due to addition of
unwanted substances like pesticides, fertilizers etc.
2- Negative Soil Pollution: It causes decrease in soil productivity because of erosion
and over use.
3- Landscape: Here fertile land becomes barren one due to addition of dumping wastes
like ash, garbage, broken cans, bottles etc. it also known as third pollution.

Control of Environmental Pollution and Green Chemistry:


Environmental pollution can be controlled by implementing these techniques:
1- By using environmental affectionate processes like Green Chemistry etc.
2- By Burning and Incineration.
3- By plantation or vegetation.
4- By management of wastes.
5- By Dumping
6- By recycling of waste materials into useful materials.
7- By Sewage Treatment.

References
[1] Environmental Chemistry -Found at
https://unacademy.com/content/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/10/18.-Environmental-
Chemistry.pdf.

[2] Narrative for a Lecture on Environmental Chemistry- Found at


https://www.asdlib.org/onlineArticles/ecourseware/Manahan/EnvChBasicsCondensedLect.pdf

[3] https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-
maps/environmental-resources.

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