INTRODUCTION TO

ENVIRONMENTAL
ENGINEERING
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING 150
ENVIRONMENTAL PROCESS ENGINEERING
OUTLINE
• Environmental Systems
• History of Human Resource Use Technology and Development
• Economic Functions of the Environment
• Pollution
• Waste Management
• Environmental Impact Model
• Environmental Science and Engineering
Environmental
Systems
ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS
• Atmosphere
• Hydrosphere
• Pedosphere
• Lithosphere
• Biosphere
ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS
History of Human
Resource Use,
Technology, and
Development
FOUR STAGES OF HUMAN
DEVELOPMENT
• Tool Making Revolution
• man survived primarily by hunting and gathering
• began to use tools for hunting and food preparation
• use fire for cooking, habitat improvement and drive
wild animals
• use of tools and fire leave its mark on the environment
FOUR STAGES OF HUMAN
DEVELOPMENT
• Agricultural Revolution
• marked by domestication of plants and animals
• plough was invented and allowed humans to clear
larger areas of land
• led to increase in population growth and building of
more permanent habitats
• most agricultural practices are not sustainable
FOUR STAGES OF HUMAN
DEVELOPMENT
• Industrial Revolution
• shift from small-scale production of goods by hand to
large-scale production of goods by machine
• Benefits:
• creation and mass production of many useful and economically
affordable products
• significant increases in average per capita income
• sharp increase in productivity
• sharp rise in average life expectancy
FOUR STAGES OF HUMAN
DEVELOPMENT
• Industrial Revolution
• Negative effects on the environment:
• Increased production and consumption of goods by humans
• Dependence on non-renewable resources (e.g., oil, natural gas
and various metals)
• Production of synthetic materials
• High use of energy
FOUR STAGES OF HUMAN
DEVELOPMENT
• Information Revolution
• born with the invention of miniaturized electronics like
transistor, integrated circuits and central processing
units
• maybe our saving grace
WORLD POPULATION TREND
CARRYING CAPACITY
CARRYING CAPACITY
Economic
Functions of the
Environment
ECONOMIC FUNCTIONS OF
THE ENVIRONMENT
• Supplies us with resources
• Assimilates wastes
• Provides life support services such as maintenance of
genetic diversity and stabilization of the ecosystem
• Provides us with various environmental services like
providing space for recreation and scenery and wildlife
for aesthetic enjoyment
RESOURCES
• anything we get from the environment that
meets our needs and wants
AVAILABILITY
• directly available: air, water and edible biomass
• others are available because we developed
technologies for exploiting them
CLASSIFICATION
• According to degree of renewability
CLASSIFICATION
• Potentially Renewable:
• can be depleted in the short term by rapid
consumption and pollution
• can be replaced in the long term by natural
processes
• Sustainable yield: the highest rate at which a
potentially renewable resource can be used
without decreasing its potential for renewal.
CLASSIFICATION
• Non-renewable Resources:
• can not be replenished on the scale of human
lifetimes.
• conservation of non-renewable resource:
• Recycling
• Re-use
CLASSIFICATION
• Perpetual Resources:
• inexhaustible on a human time scale of decades and
centuries
• solar, wind and tidal energies
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
• development that meets the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of
the future generations to meet their own
needs.
Pollution
WORLD CO2 EMMISSIONS PER
CAPITA
POLLUTION
• Wastes: unwanted by-products and residues
left from the use or production of a resource
• Pollution: contamination of a substance in
such a way that the beneficial use of a certain
resource is adversely affected
POLLUTION
• A change in the physical, chemical, radiological
or biological quality of the resource (air, water,
or land) caused by man or man’s activities that
is injurious to existing, intended or potential
use of the resource.
SECOND LAW OF
THERMODYNAMICS
• Everything goes from order to disorder
• many pounds of raw materials are needed to
make one pound of product
• most of raw materials go to waste not to
product
Waste
Management
HIERARCHY OF WASTE
MANAGEMENT
• Pollution Prevention
• Recycle/Re-use
• Treatment
• Storage
• Disposal
SOURCE REDUCTION
• Change product
• Alter process
RECOVERY
• Recycle: use wastes as source of raw materials
• Re-use: use materials more than once
TREATMENT
• Transform pollutants to harmless or useful
materials:
• Oxidize CO to CO2
• Convert wastes to compost
STORAGE
• Ensure that the pollutants will not migrate out
• Ensure that pollutants will not react with each
other
Environmental
Impact Model
EXTENT DEPENDS ON
• Population
• Per capita consumption of resources
• Amount of pollution or environmental
degradation per unit of resource used.
FORMULA
𝑬𝒏𝒗𝒊𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒍 𝑰𝒎𝒑𝒂𝒄𝒕 =
𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 ×
𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑎𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑎 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑢𝑚𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑐𝑒𝑠 ×
𝑑𝑒𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑐𝑒 𝑢𝑠𝑒𝑑
TYPES OF ENVIROMENTAL
DEGRADATION
• People overpopulation: circumstance in which a large
number of people have insufficient resources and
therefore overuse them
• Consumption overpopulation: the use of resources at a
very high rate by a small number of people
• Pollution overpopulation: a circumstance in which a
small or large number of people use technology that are
overly polluting.
WORLD ENERGY
CONSUMPTION PER SOURCE
ENERGY CONSUMPTION PER
CAPITA
Environmental
Science and
Engineering
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENTIST
• Evaluate source and nature of pollution
problem
• Evaluate environmental impact
ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER
• Evaluate possible solutions
• Design, build and operate pollution control
systems
SUMMARY
• Identify and quantify pollution problem
(Environmental Science)
• Solve pollution problem (Environmental
Engineering)