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Science 9 > Environmental Chemistry > Flashcards

Environmental Chemistry Flashcards

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 are sorbents?

A

Any substance that can absorb or capture oxides

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3
Q

What does organic mean?

A

Carbon-containing, produced in plants

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4
Q

What are the main organic nutrients?

A

Carbohydrates, vitamins, lipids, and proteins

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5
Q

What do vitamins do?

A

Help enzymes function. Examples are vitamin A which helps vision, Vitamin B helps cell division, Vitamin C forms connective tissue, vitamin E prevents heart attacks, and Vitamin K helps blood clot

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6
Q

What do carbohydrates do?

A

Provide immediate energy

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7
Q

What do lipids do?

A

Provide stored energy

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8
Q

What do proteins do?

A

Structural molecule of the body and helps chemical reactions

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9
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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10
Q

What do different elements do in the body?

A

See image 25

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11
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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12
Q

What does NPK stand for?

A

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

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13
Q

Why is fertilizer important?

A

It allows us to grow much Much MUCH more food

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14
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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15
Q

What does DDT stand for?

A

Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane

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16
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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17
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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18
Q

What is biomagnification?

A

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

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19
Q

What were the upsides of banning DDT?

A

It helped the ecosystems recover

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20
Q

What were the downsides of banning DDT?

A

Millions of preventable deaths happened

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21
Q

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

A

Pesticide resistance, caused by natural selection

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22
Q

How do pollutants get into humans?

A

Ingestion, absorption, injection, inhalation

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23
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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24
Q

What is an acid?

A

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

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25
Q

What is a base?

A

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

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26
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

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27
Q

What is the formula for pH?

A

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

28
Q

Molality vs Molarity

A

Molality is moles/mass whereas molarity is moles/volume

29
Q

How do negative pHs work?

A

When the concentration of hydrogen ions is greater than 1 molarity (#moles/volume)(a very very very big number)

30
Q

What does pH stand for?

A

Power of Hydrogen

31
Q

What is acid precipitation?

A

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

32
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

33
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 to produce a salt and a water

34
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 (carbon dioxide instead of carbon monoxide)

35
Q

What are scrubbers?

A

Devices with sorbents to capture the harmful gasses, especially sulfur dioxide

36
Q

What is a pollutant?

A

Anything that can cause harm to an organism

37
Q

What is pollution?

A

The altercation of the environment causing harm to organisms

38
Q

What is toxicity?

A

The ability of a substance to cause harm to an organism

39
Q

What is acute and chronic toxicity?

A

Acute happens immediately while chronic happens through prolonged exposure

40
Q

What is an LD50?

A

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

41
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

42
Q

What is the evaluation of risk?

A

The decision to accept the risks that come with any chemical

43
Q

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

A

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

44
Q

What are bioindicator species?

A

Species that indicate the success of the ecosystem

45
Q

What are the best bioindicator species?

A

Macroinvertebrates, organisms without a backbone visible to the naked eye

46
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

47
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

48
Q

What is NIMBY?

A

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

49
Q

What happened to the ozone layer above the Antarctic?

A

Chlorofluorocarbons were being emitted, and when UV rays turned them into chloride ions which acted as a catalyst for the breakdown of ozone into oxygen

50
Q

Why is pollution affecting aquifers?

A

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

51
Q

What does biodegradable mean?

A

Substances that can be broken down by organisms

52
Q

What are hazardous wastes?

A

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

53
Q

What percent of solvents are hazardous?

A

ALL

54
Q

What are the 3 Rs?

A

In order of effectiveness, reduce, reuse and recycle

55
Q

Why is recycling beneficial?

A

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

56
Q

What is a sanitary landfill?

A

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

57
Q

What is leachate?

A

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

58
Q

What are secure landfills?

A

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

59
Q

What are water hyacinths?

A

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

60
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

61
Q

What is biomediation?

A

The process of using organisms to solve problems

62
Q

What are bioreactors?

A

Tanks that house biomediating bacteria

63
Q

What is a substrate?

A

The surface or material on which an organism grows

64
Q

What are POPs?

A

Persistent organic pollutants are pollutants that break down very slowly

65
Q

What are non-persistent pollutants?

A

Pollutants easily biodegradable into non-polluting substances

66
Q

What is a dilution?

A

A reduction of concentration

Science 9 (6 decks)

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