Environmental Chemistry Flashcards

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1
Q

What are nutrients?

A

Chemicals that are used by the body for energy, growth, body building, and cell repair

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2
Q

What does organic mean?

A

Carbon-containing

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3
Q

What are the main organic nutrients?

A

Carbohydrates, vitamins, lipids, and proteins

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4
Q

What do vitamins do?

A

Help enzymes function

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5
Q

What do carbohydrates do?

A

Provide immediate energy

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6
Q

What do lipids do?

A

Provide stored energy

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7
Q

What do proteins do?

A

Structural molecule of the body and helps chemical reactions

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8
Q

What are macrominerals and trace elements?

A

Macrominerals are elements that you need over 100 mg per day and trace elements are elements that you need under 100 mg per day

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9
Q

What do different elements do in the body?

A

See image 25

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10
Q

How do we get the nutrients we need?

A

Through other organisms such as plants and animals, due to a plant’s ability to concentrate nutrients very well

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11
Q

What does NPK stand for?

A

Nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, that benefit leaves, roots and seeds respectively

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12
Q

Why is fertilizer important?

A

It allows us to grow much Much MUCH more food

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13
Q

What are pesticides and what are the 3 types?

A

Something sprayed to prevent that area from being contaminated by pests and include insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides

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14
Q

What does DDT stand for?

A

Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane

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15
Q

What were the benefits of DDT?

A

It stopped millions of deaths from malaria, yellow fever, typhus etc., earning its inventor, Paul Hermann Muller a Nobel prize

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16
Q

What were the downsides of DDT?

A

It quickly spread into ecosystems, killing off many many many species through the food web, even causing mutations and creating bird eggs with unfeasibly thin eggshells

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17
Q

What is biomagnification?

A

The process of concentrating contaminants the higher up on a food chain you go

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18
Q

What were the upsides of banning DDT?

A

It helped the ecosystems recover

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19
Q

What were the downsides of banning DDT?

A

Millions of preventable deaths happened

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20
Q

What is a major issue in creating one safe and effective pesticide?

A

Pesticide resistance, caused by natural selection

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21
Q

What is the difference between a poison and a toxin?

A

Toxins are proteins that cause bodily harm while a poison is anything that causes bodily harm

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22
Q

What is an acid?

A

A chemical that produces an acidic substance with a PH of less than 7

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23
Q

What is a base?

A

A chemical that produces a basic substance with a PH of more than 7

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24
Q

What is the best way to test if something is an acid or a base?

A

Litmus, a plant compound, turns red in acids and blue in bases

25
Q

What is the formula for pH?

A

-log [H+], or the negative base 10 logarithmic function for the reciprocal of the concentration of hydrogen ions in a solution

26
Q

How do negative pHs work?

A

When the concentration of hydrogen ions is greater than 10 moles (a very very very big number)

27
Q

What does pH stand for?

A

Power of Hydrogen

28
Q

What is acid precipitation?

A

The raining of acids, caused by the water absorbing the toxic gases in the atmosphere

29
Q

How did international agreements reduce acid rain?

A

They agreed to cut emissions, which reduced the toxic gases in the atmosphere to reduce acid rain

30
Q

What is liming?

A

Liming, or acid-base neutralization, is the process of releasing a substance to react with an acid to neutralize it into pH 7, usually done with limestone (Calcium Carbonate) and sulfuric acid

31
Q

Why is liming bad and what is the better alternative?

A

Lakes are constantly fed with acids from rivers and reducing emissions through a catalytic converter to encourage complete oxidation

32
Q

What are scrubbers?

A

Devices with sorbents to capture the harmful gasses

33
Q

What is a pollutant?

A

Anything that can cause harm to an organism

34
Q

What is pollution?

A

The altercation of the environment causing harm to organisms

35
Q

What is toxicity?

A

The ability of a substance to cause harm to an organism

36
Q

What is acute and chronic toxicity?

A

Acute happens immediately while chronic happens through prolonged exposure

37
Q

What is an LD50?

A

The dose that can kill 50% of a population when it is applied

38
Q

Why do governments take so long to approve a drug?

A

They must undergo thorough testing, or else it might end up like thalidomide, which caused missing limbs when taken by pregnant mothers although it had no effect on lab rats with thousands of times the dose

39
Q

What is the evaluation of risk?

A

The decision to accept the risks that come with any chemical

40
Q

What is the difference between persistent and non-persistent pollutants?

A

Persistent pollutants do not break down easily while non-persistent ones do

41
Q

What are bioindicator species?

A

Species that indicate the success of the ecosystem

42
Q

What are the best bioindicator species?

A

Macroinvertebrates, organisms without a backbone visible to the naked eye

43
Q

What are point sources and non-point sources?

A

Point sources are a source of pollutant that enters the environment from specific points and non-point sources offer a large dispersion of pollutants

44
Q

How do excess phosphates and nitrates harm the water?

A

It creates algae which when they die off soak up a lot of oxygen for the decomposition process

45
Q

What is NIMBY?

A

Not in my backyard, or the sense that people don’t know how close waste is

46
Q

What happened to the ozone layer above the Antarctic?

A

Chlorofluorocarbons were being emitted which acted as a catalyst for the breakdown of ozone into oxygen

47
Q

Why is pollution affecting aquifers?

A

The groundwater supply that is usually bacteria-free ends up contaminated by other chemicals

48
Q

What does biodegradable mean?

A

Substances that can be broken down by organisms

49
Q

What are hazardous wastes?

A

Any waste material that is either poisonous, toxic, corrosive, flammable or explosive

50
Q

What percent of solvents are hazardous?

A

ALL

51
Q

What are the 3 Rs?

A

In order of effectiveness, (reduce), (reuse and recycle )

52
Q

Why is recycling beneficial?

A

It saves a very large amount of energy needed to manufacture a new product, and prevents landfill buildup

53
Q

What is a sanitary landfill?

A

A landfill covered each day by a new layer and usually incorporates some sort of clay or plastic liner to prevent liquids from contaminating the earth

54
Q

What is leachate?

A

The liquid that drains from landfills, whether it be rainwater or decomposition liquid

55
Q

What are secure landfills?

A

Sanitary landfills but extra, including gravel, drainage pipes, etc. to store more harmful wastes

56
Q

What are water hyacinths?

A

A plant that help in the wastewater treatment process that filters out pollutants

57
Q

What do mustard and fescue grass do?

A

More plants that can help filter out harmful substances and reduce it into less potent forms

58
Q

What is biomediation?

A

The process of using organisms to solves problems

59
Q

What are bioreactors?

A

Tanks that house biomediating bacteria