Using Resources Flashcards
What are natural resources?
Anything that comes from the Earth seal air such as cotton for clothing or oil for fuel
What are finite/non-renewable resources?
Resources that aren’t formed quickly enough to be considered replaceable
How have chemists improved sustainability?
Chemist have develops catalysts that reduce the amount of energy required for certain industrial processes
What is bioleaching?
A way of extracting metals, e.g copper.
bacteria are used to convert copper compounds in the ore into soluble copper compounds, separating out the copper from the ore the process.
The Leachate (the solution produced by the process) contains copper ions which can be extracted by electrolysis or displacement with a more reactive metal, like scrap iron.
Why is bioleaching in phytomining
Good?
Traditional methods of copper mining are pretty damaging to the environment, however these methods of extraction have much smaller impacts
The disadvantages is that they are slow
What is phyotomining
The involves growing plants and soil that contains copper. The plants can’t use or get rid of the copper so gradually builds in the leaves. The plant can be harvested dried and burned in a furnace. The ash contains copper compounds from which copper can be extracted by electrolysis or displacement using scrap iron.
What is a blast furnace?
A blast furnace is used to extract iron from its all add a high temp using carbon
Waste steel iron can be kept together as they can be both added to iron in a ——— ——- to reduce the amount of iron required
Blast furnace
What did you recycle to help sustainability?
Recycling metals in glass is important
What is a life-cycle assessment? (LCA)
Looks at every stage of a product to assess the impact that would have on the environment
If a company wants to manufacture a new product, they will carry out a life cycle assessment first
Name me the four stages of the life-cycle assessment
Getting the raw materials
Manufacturing and packaging
Using the product
Product disposal
Talk me through stage one of the life-cycle assessment
Getting Raw materials:
Extracting raw materials needed for a product can damage the local environment. For example, mining metals.
Extraction can also result in pollution due to the amount of energy needed.
Materials often need to be processed to extract the desired materials and this often needs large amounts of energy example extracting metals from ores or fractional distillation for crude oil
Take me through stage two of the life-cycle assessment:
Manufacturing and packaging:
Manufacturing products in their packaging can use a lot of energy resources and can also cause a lot of pollution such as harmful fumes like carbon monoxide or hydrogen chloride
You also need to think about any waste products and how to dispose of them. The chemical reactions used to make compounds from the warm materials can produce waste products. Some waste can be turned into useful chemicals, reducing the amount buttons up polluting the environment.
Talk me through stage three of the life-cycle assessment:
Using the product:
The use of a product damage the environment like burning fuels releases greenhouse gases and other harmful substance. Fertilisers industries and rivers causing damage to ecosystems.
How long a product is used for or how many uses it gets is also factor - products that need energy to produce but are use for ages may mean less waste in the long run.
Talk me through stage four of the life-cycle assessment:
Product disposal:
Products are often disposed of in landfill sides. This takes up space and pollute land and water.
E.g. paint may wash off a product in landfill and pollute river.
Energy used to transport waste landfill which can cause pollutants to be released released into the atmosphere
Products might be incinerated (burnt), which causes air pollution.
