CHEMISTRY OF THE ENVIRONMENT

The richness of life on Earth, represented in the chapter-opening photograph, is made possible by our planet s supportive atmosphere, the energy received from the Sun, and an abundance of water. These are the signature environmental features believed to be necessary for life. 

As technology has advanced and the world human population has increased, humans have put new and greater stresses on the environment. Paradoxically, the very technology that can cause pollution also provides the tools to help understand and manage the environment in a beneficial way. Chemistry is often at the heart of environmental issues. The economic growth of both developed and developing nations depends critically on chemical processes that range from treatment of water supplies to industrial processes. Some of these processes produce products or by-products that are harmful to the environment. 

We are now in a position to apply the principles we have learned in preceding chapters to an understanding of how our environment operates and how human activities affect it. To understand and protect the environment in which we live, we must understand how human-made and natural chemical compounds interact on land and in the sea and sky. Our daily actions as consumers tmn on the same choices made by leading experts and governmental leaders Each decision should reflect the costs versus the benefits of our choices. Unfortimately, the environmental impacts of om decisions are often subtle and not immediately evident 

1 EARTH S ATMOSPHERE We begin with a look at the temperature profile, pressure profile, and chemical composition of Earth s atmosphere. We then examine photoionization and photodissociation, reactions that result from atmospheric absorption of solar radiation. 

3 EARTH S WATER We examine the global water cycle, which describes how water moves from the ground to surface to the atmosphere and back into the ground. We compare the chemical compositions of seawater, freshwater, and groundwater. 

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Alter the environment to render it less eorrosive. This approach may be as simple as maintaining clean metal surfaces. It is well known that the chemistry of the environment beneath deposits can become substantially different than that of the bulk environment. This difference can lead to localized, underdeposit corrosion (see Chap. 4, Underdeposit Corrosion ). The pit sites produced may then induce corrosion fatigue when cyclic stresses are present. The specific steps taken to reduce corrosivity vary with the metal under consideration. In general, appropriate adjustments to pH and reduction or elimination of aggressive ions should be considered. 

Thomas G. Spiro and William M. Stigliani. Chemistry of the Environment. New Jersey Prentice Hall, 1996. 

Thomas G. Spiro and William M. Stigliani. Chemistry of the Environment. Upper Saddle River, NJ Prentice Hall, 1996. Source for how DDT kills organophosphates, aldicarbs, and malathion Sri Lanka and pressure on Congress. 

We can now present the treatment of the evolution of our ecological system as a diagram in the form of a cone with a cut-away sector (see Fig. 11.7 and the cover of this book). The cone space encloses all the chemistry of the environment and organisms from the beginning of life on Earth to today in a continuous manner. Its central... 

The main purpose of the IUPAC Series on Analytical and Physical Chemistry of Environmental Systems is to make chemists, biologists, physicists and other scientists aware of the most important biophysicochemical conditions and processes that define the behaviour of environmental systems. The various volumes of the Series thus emphasise the fundamental concepts of environmental processes, taking into account specific aspects such as physical and chemical heterogeneity, and interaction with the biota. Another major goal of the series is to discuss the analytical tools that are available, or should be developed, to study these processes. Indeed, there still seems to be a great need for methodology developed specifically for the field of analytical/physical chemistry of the environment. 

The New Chemistry is a set of six hooks intended to provide an overview of some areas of research not typically included in the beginning middle or high school curriculum in chemistry. The six hooks in the set—Chemistry of Drugs, Chemistry of New Materials, Forensic Chemistry, Chemistry of the Environment, Food Chemistry, and Chemistry of Space—are designed to provide a broad, general introduction to some helds of chemistry that are less commonly mentioned in standard introductory chemistry courses. They cover topics ranging from the most fundamental helds of chemistry, such as the origins of matter and of the universe, to those with important applications to everyday life, such as the composition of foods... 

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