Tutorial 2 UDEC 2233 Industrial Chemistry

Week 10, May Semester 2020 (Ooi ML.)

Q1. (a) Why waste treatment is important to most industrial?

-To reduce the volume and toxicity of the waste and to make it safer for
disposal.

(b) What are the differences between physical and chemical waste treatments?

- Physical waste treatments are used to concentrate and reduce waste

volume, and to separate the different phases of waste. No chemical
process is involved.
- Chemical waste treatment is used to convert hazardous waste into
nonhazardous by-products.

(c) List out 5 processes involve in the chemical treatments for waste.

- Calcination, electrolysis, neutralization, oxidation or reduction.

(d) What are the advantage and limitation of biological treatments?

-Advantage:
-The system does not require chemicals and therefore the decomposition of
organics is an environmental friendly degradation process.

-Limitation:
-Cannot handle slurries, tars, or a high concentration of suspended solids.

(e) What are the important criteria for land-farming of a waste?

-The important criteria for land-farming of a waste are the biodegradability of the
wastes containing organic materials, and they should have a neutral pH and
contain moisture. These wastes should not contain materials that are capable of
polluting air or contaminating ground water.

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Q2. (a) Define the soap and detergents.

-Soaps are water-soluble sodium or potassium salts of fatty acids containing 8 to

22 carbon atoms.

A detergent is similar to soap, but with a general structure R-SO3-Na+, where R is

a long-chain alkyl group. They made from chemical compounds rather than fats
and lye (potash or potassium carbonate).

(b) Illustrate the formation of soap from fat splitting.

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(c) The main ingredients in detergent are surfactant and builders. Explain their action
towards detergency.

Surfactants are chemicals that comprise a hydrophobic group (a long alkyl chain)
attached to a hydrophilic group. The hydrophilic group is usually added
synthetically to produce water soluble. Hydrophobic part of surfactant absorbed to
the oil and removes it from the fabric surface. After removal, surfactant molecules
remain surrounding the oil and it prevents redeposition onto the cleaned surface.

Builders:
The calcium and magnesium ions in solution interfere with the dislodging of dirt
from the substrate, and the dirt-suspending power is affected because of their
double positive charge.
Builders must be added to the detergent to sequester or complex the ions.
Builders have the ability to control water hardness.

The combination of builders and surfactants exhibits a synergistic effect to

boost total detergency and cleaning efficacy.

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(d) Outline the reactions involved in preparation of linear alkylbenzenesulfonates
(LAS). Explain why caustic treatment is required at the end.

-Caustic is sodium or potassium hydroxide. It is required for neutralization of

sufonic acid formed after reaction with sulfur trioxide.

(e) Propose the mechanism how linear alkylbenzenesulfonate (LAS) is generated

after dehydrogenation of n-Alkanes C12H26, then can undergo a Friedel - Crafts
alkylation with benzene followed by sulfonation and caustic treatment.

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Q3 (a) Briefly explain why the following feedstocks require pretreatment before
fermentation.

(i) Biomass

- Biomass refers to tough, fibrous, or woody plant parts, such as grass,

leaves, stems, flowers, corn stalks, wood, or paper products.
Cellulose must be separated out from biomass so that cellulase enzymes
can reach the cellulose to produce glucose by hydrolysis. Therefore,
heating and grinding, acid treatments are effective pretreatment methods
to extract out the cellulose.

(ii) Starch

Starches are also carbohydrate polymer which needs to convert to simple

sugar (glucose) before the fermentation using yeast. Therefore, the
following two steps hydrolysis is conducted to produce the glucose.
(1) liquefaction (become liquid) by alpha-amylase
(2) saccharification (to convert (starch) into sugar) by glucoamylase.

(b) List the name of microorganisms and feedstock and state the oxygen requirement
for the production of the following organic solvents.

(i) Acetone–butanol–ethanol (ABE)

-Clostridius (anaerobic), sugar containing feedstock

(ii) butane-2,3-diol

- Aerobacter (aerobic), sugar containing feedstock

(iii) Lactic acid

-Lactobacillus (anaerobic), sugar containing feedstock

(c) Briefly state generally requirements for production of vitamins by fermentation?

-Vitamins are produced by fermentation of sugar containing starting materials and

special additives (essential components of vitamins) by bacteria or yeast.

Vitamins = Sugar containing compounds+ Special additives + microorganism

(bacteria or yeast)

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 (d) The structure of vitamin B12 (cyanocobalamine) is shown below. Predict
why bacteria fermentation requires glucose, corn, and cobalt salts.

-Glucose (C source), Corn (Cheap C source), Cobalt salt (structure requirement).

Q4. (a) Define semiochemicals.

-Living organisms use the chemical senses as a means of communication.

Chemicals used to that convey a signal from one organism to another so as to
modify the behavior of the recipient organism are known as semiochemicals.

(b) State TWO classes of semiochemicals.

-Pheromone and allelochemicals

(c) What types of the chemicals possess by synomone, allomones and kairomones?

Synomone = volatile terpenes

Allomone = natural products (not volatile)
Kairomone = volatile terpenes

(d) What is the difference between steam distillation and hydrodifussion?

Steam distillation
Water or steam is added to the still pot and the oils are co-distilled with the
steam.

Hydrodiffusion
It is steam distillation carried out upside down since the steam is introduced at the
top of the pot and the water and oil taken off as liquids at the bottom.