Pollution and its control

Pollution: The presence of undesirable substance more than their threshold limit,
causing the adverse changes change in the physical, chemical and biological nature of the
environment along with exhibit very harmful effect on human life and other living
organism is known as pollution. There may be foreign as well as naturally occurring
pollutants that causes pollution.

Pollutant: Any substance, or form of energy which has the ability to pollute the
environment, causing harmful effects and damaging nature in general. It might affect
natural health of plants, the quality of air, human health, etc. Pollutants are either natural
or manmade.

Source of pollution: The important source of environment pollution is

(i) Anthropogenic source (Agricultural activity, domestic activity, Industrialisation, Over
population, Deforestation: Destruction of natural habitat etc.)
(ii) Natural sources (Volcano, organic compounds from plants, suspended soils and dusts
etc).
Types of pollutant:
(i) Chemical: Toxic metal (As, Pb, Hg etc), gaseous (NOx, SOx, O3) particulates (both
organic and inorganic) , hydrocarbons etc.
(ii) Physical: Heat, radiation and radioactive emission etc.
(iii) Biologicals: Pathogenic organism.
Pollution also classified in to two categories:
(i) Primary pollutant: Primary pollutants are the pollutants, which are emitted directly
from identifiable sources.
eg CO2, SO2, NO, NO2 Carbon monoxide, etc,
(ii) Secondary pollutant: Secondary pollutants, are those which are produced in the
atmosphere when certain chemical reactions take place among primary pollutants
eg SO3, HNO3, H2SO4 peroxy acetylnitate etc.
 Photochemical smog:

"Smog" is a term originally formed by the combination of of the words "smoke" and
"fog. Photochemical smog is a mixture of air pollutants formed by the reaction of nitrogen
oxides (NOx) and volatile organic hydrocarbons (VOCs) when they are exposed to
sunlight. It is characteristic by brown hazy fumes having characteristic order of O3. It is
highly oxidising due to presence of O3 and organic peroxide compound like peroxy acetyl
nitrate (PAN), Peroxy benzyl nitrate etc. It leads to cracking of rubber, damage to paints,
clothes and biological systems. Photochemical smog is also referred to as oxidising smog.
Nitrogen oxides (the mixture of NO and NO2 together referred to as NOx) and volatile
organic compounds (VOCs) are primary air pollutants, released in the atmosphere by
automobiles and industrial processes. Nitrogen dioxide absorbs ultraviolet light and
formation of nitric oxide and atomic oxygen takes place. Ozone is generated by the
reaction of oxygen gas with this atomic oxygen. Ozone, aldehydes and peroxyacetyl
nitrate so formed are thus secondary air pollutants. Photochemical smog is a mixture of
primary and secondary air pollutants.

Formation of photochemical smog:

(i) Formation of ozone in lower atmosphere: At the high temperatures in a car's
combustion chamber (cylinder), nitrogen and oxygen from the air react to give nitric
oxide.
IC engine
N2 +O2 2NO
2NO 2NO2

NO2 photo chemically dissociate to give atomic oxygen [O] in presence of sunlight.
h
NO2 Sunlight NO + [O]

The atomic oxygen reacts with O2 to give O3 in lower atmosphere

O2 + [O] O3
(ii) Generation of hydroxide radical: The atomic oxygen can react with H2O to give
H2O2
h 
H2O + [O] H2O2 2OH
 
Reaction of OH with NO2 and hydrocarbons

RCH3 +OH RCH2 +H2O
 
RCH2 + O2 RCH2O2


RCH2O2 + NO RCH2O + NO2
 
RCH2O + O2 RCHO + HO2
 
HO2 + NO NO2 + OH


This OH radical parcicipate in chain reaction.

·
RCHO + OH R ·C O + H2O

Acylperoxy (RCO3.) radicals has been be formed by the reaction of carboxyl radicals and
oxygen atoms

Over all reaction

h
Hydrocarons (RH) + NO2 Peroxyacetyl nitrate+ Peroxybenzyl nitrate
From sunlight + R-CHO+ O + other particulates
3
Effect of photochemical smog:
Photochemical smog contains O3, peroxyacetyl nitatte (PAN), peroxybenzyl nitrate
(PBzN), R-CHO. All these chemical cause several adverse effect on environment and
quite harmful to living system.
(i) Effect on human health: Presence of excess ozone in lower atmosphere cause
extrema fatigue, headache, chest discomfort, irritation to respiratory system and problem
in central nerves system etc. PAN and PBzN are responsible for eye iiritation,
formaldehyde is responsible for eye iirtation and sore throat. VOCs result in eye irritation
and respiratory problems. Prolonged exposure to NO2 lowers resistance towards
respiratory infections.
(ii) Effect on plant: Ozone causes oxidative damage to plant tissue by dehydrating of
plant leaf. PAN damage the leaves of plant and prevent photosynthesis. Presence of
excess NO2 due to photochemical smog cause chlorosis of leaves.
(iii) Effect on materials: Ozone of photochemical smog can damage textile, fabrics,
dyes, paints polymer etc. Rubber is oxidised by ozone molecule.
Ozone layer depletion:
Acid rain: Rainwater is naturally slightly acidic due to dissolved carbon dioxide. But in
polluted environment the rain reacts with oxides of sulphur (SOx) and oxide of nitrogen
(NOx) to form a mixture of H2SO4 and HNO3 and water as a result there is a decrease in pH
of rain water. So the rain water having pH value lower than 5.7 is called acid rain. In acid
rain H2SO4 is major contributor followed by HNO3.
2SO2 + O2 + 2H2O 2H2SO4
4NO2 + O2 + 2H2O 4HNO3
Effect of acid rain:
(i) The important cationic nutrient Ca2+, Mg2+, etc are bound on cationic exchange soil
leached out due to acid rain.

(ii) Cause irritation on eye and skin

(iii) Cause damage the building rocks

CaCO3 + H2SO4 CaSO4 + CO2 +H2O

(iv) Increase the corrosion rate of metal.

Al2O3 + 6H+ 2Al3+ + 3H2O
ZnO + 2H+ Zn2+ + H2O
(v) Damage the plant leaves.

Green House effect:

CO2 gas in the atmosphere perform major role of heating up the atmosphere by trapping
infrared (IR) rays from sun. The sun rays consist of UV-Visible and IR radiation. The O3
absorb most of the UV radiation and allows visible and IR radiation pass through the CO 2
layer in the atmosphere. These IR causes heating effect on the earth. Consequently, if large
amount of CO2 present in the atmosphere it causes greater heating up of the earth atmosphere
by absorbing large amount of IR radiation. Hence the temperature of earth atmosphere rises.
If concentration of CO2 is increase 0.75 ppm, then the temperature rising 0.05 0C. If this
continue then world will go on warming up more and more which could ultimately melt
glaciers, polar ice cap and flooding of many low lying areas and is known as greenhouse
effect.
The other gases causing greenhouse effect are methane (CH4), nitrogen oxide (NO),
chlorofluro carbon (CFCs) etc.
Cause of greenhouse effect:
Production of excessive greenhouse gases is responsible for enhanced greenhouse effect.
CO2 – Uses of petrol, diesel, CNG etc by automobile
CFCs- Use in refrigerator. CFCs absorb IR radiation.
NO- At the high temperatures in a car's combustion chamber (cylinder), nitrogen and oxygen
from the air react to give nitric oxide.

Effects:
(i) Sea level will rise due to rising in temperature as a result flooding will occur along
worldwide and salt water will reach inland.
(ii) The increased temperature would lead to melting of glaciers and polar ice cap
(iii) Rise in surface temperature can adverse effect the food production.
Spectrophotometric determination of NOx (Saltzmann method): This method has been
used to measure the concentration of oxides of nitrogen (mainlyNO2) in a given air sample
by quantitatively. In this method the NO2 is absorbed by the solution triehnaolamine in
NaOH and producing nitrite ion (NO2-). The nitrite ion was convert to HNO2 in presence
excess dilute acetic acid at the temperature 0 - 5 °C. The resulting HNO2 react with
Sulafanilic acid to gives diazonium type of salt which further undergoes azo coupling
reaction with NEDA (N-(naphthyl)ethylenediamine hydrochloride] give red colour azo dye
complex. This azo dye complex has absorption maxima at 550 nm. By measuring the colour
intensity of the dye the concentration of NO2 can be estimated. This method works in the
range 0.01-1.5μg/mL.
In this method interference arises due to high concentration of SO2. The interference can
be removed by the reaction with H2O2 to produce H2SO4 before analysis.
Spectrophotometric determination of SOx (West-Gaeck Method): In this method SO2
is absorb in sodium tetrachloromercurate (Na2HgCl4) solution to prevent the oxidation of
SO2 to SO3 through the formation of dichlorosulfitomercurate [HgCl 2(SO3)]2-. Then the
solution is treated with H-CHO and with parasosaniline hydrochloride to develop a reddish
violet dye having absorption maxima at 548nm. By measuring the colour intensity of the
dye the concentration of SO2 can be estimated. This method works in the range 0.01-
1.5μg/mL. The reaction is carried out in dilute acidic medium (pH ~ 1.0).
In this method interference arises due NOx. The interference can be removed by adding
sulfamic acid (NH2SO3H).
Spectrophotometric Determination of H2S: