Atom economy

Question 1

What is atom economy?

Answer 1

A measure of the proportion of reactant atoms that become part of the desired produce in the balanced chemical equation

Question 2

What does it mean when a company has a high atom economy? (3 marks)

Answer 2

1) They will make more efficient use of its raw materials
2) They will have less waste to deal with
3) They will spend less on separating the desired product from the waste product

Question 3

What does it mean when a company has a low atom economy? (2 marks)

Answer 3

1) They are using large quantities of raw materials to make relatively small amounts of desired products and lots of by-products
2) It costs them more money as they have to separate the products and dispose of them safely

Question 4

Why do we need to make the most of raw materials?

Answer 4

They are in limited supply

Question 5

What are waste chemicals often harmful to?

Answer 5

the environment

Question 6

Using a high atom economy is more sustainable. What does this mean?

Answer 6

Using up as little of the earth’s resources as possible and not putting loads of damaging chemicals into the environment