COURSE: CHEMICAL BASIS OF

ENVIRONMENT

Lecture 3
Chemical Basis of Environment

Instructor: Dr. Mohammad Rafiq Khan

 INTRODUCTION
 Action and Reaction between Anything and its Environment
 Question 1: What are their visible structures and how they act and react with each other?---
Answered by Physics
 Question 2: Acting and reacting bodies are living or non-living?-- Answered by Biology
 Multiplicity of questions say about origin of life in the universe, sources of energy that make the
things move, etc.
 Natural demand for the explanation of every phenomenon encountered in surroundings and thus a
detailed
 For the detailed study a large number of questions may crop up. A few are given below.
 What is the composition and structure of the specific object under study?
 What are its ultimate components?
 What is the basic nature of the ultimate components or what are their fundamental characteristics?
 How the ultimate components interlink and organize to the visible form?
 What is the cause of the tendency to combine with each other?
 What are the levels of structural built up?
 The answers to these questions are provided by Chemistry. Spectrum of dependence of universal
process is highly extensive. In other words, what so ever is going on in the universe seeks
explanation from Chemistry for the mode of its function. Of Continuous help by many other
sciences particularly Physics (Physical Chemistry)
 Definition of Chemistry: Branch of Science that deals with the composition and the
structure of matter by analysis and synthesis. Basic nature of matter present in the
universe and basis of all kind of changes that take place in the nature of matter.
 Branches: Organic Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, Biochemistry, Industrial Chemistry,
Applied Chemistry, Environmental Chemistry and so on.
 Environmental Chemistry and what is the spectrum of its activity in the environmental
context.
 Environmental Chemistry may be defined as the branch of Chemistry that deals with the
composition and the structure of environment predefined with reference to a specific
entity such as individual, family, village, town, city, state or province, country, globe, etc,
by analysis and synthesis and with all kind of changes in the nature of matter present in
the environment.
 It involves the study of all kinds of chemical phenomena that take place in the
environment. It is the study of all the chemical species that exist in different segments of
environment, their sources, pathways, and transformation on the way and impacts on all
forms of life on earth.
 Application to life on earth where the air atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere and
biosphere collectively constitute its immediate environment
 Atmosphere for first illustration
 Immediate question: What is the atmosphere composed of? The Answer: Mostly composed of Nitrogen and Oxygen
 Next question: What is the ratio of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere?
 Answer: N2 to O2 --79:21
 Secondary Questions
 Do these two gases react with each other in certain conditions of the atmosphere?
 Answer: They do so only under a special condition when clouds in the sky undergo an electric discharge
 Formation of Nitric Oxide and Nitrogen Peroxide
 Very important question with reference to environment:
 What is the impact of this change on quality of air in the atmosphere?
 Answer will be that Nitrogen Peroxide an important pollutant of the environment because it when dissolved in water in the atmosphere
produces a mixture of nitrous acid and nitric acid. Acid Rain, pH of the soil and impact on plant growth
  
 The fundamental question narrated above may be followed by the question what other gases are present in the atmosphere? The
  
 Answer: A large number of other gases present in the atmosphere but they are present in very small amounts.
 Examples: Carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, water vapors, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, ozone, etc.
 Next Level: Questions about physical and chemical characteristics may be asked and answered.
 Level Follow: Composition and the structure of matter present in the atmosphere
 Examples:
 What fundamental particles compose oxygen?
 Answer: Molecules.
 What is the oxygen molecule composed of?
 Answer: Oxygen atoms.
 In what form does Oxygen occur in the atmosphere?
 Answer: Diatomic (O2) form.
 First part of Definition: Illustrated above
 Second Part: Applied to interpret the chemical changes that take place and damage the living
bodies.
 Abnormal situation: Agents capable of damaging life on earth enter the atmosphere and cause
change in the basic nature of its components to form products injurious to the living bodies or
directly cause chemical changes in the components of the living body.
 Example:
 Carbon monoxide and hemoglobin, Chlorine and cells
 Chlorine, carbon monoxide and carbonyl chloride popularly known as Phosgene (war gas), all
fatal gases if present in the atmosphere beyond the safety limits chlorine damages cells and
tissues
 Infinite number of reactions taking place in the atmosphere
 The same treatment can be extended to other major components of the environment of Earth
i.e., Lithosphere, Hydrosphere, and even, the Biosphere, which includes all forms of life. The
treatments can be summed up to say that the Environmental Chemistry is the branch of
Chemistry that deals with all kind of chemical changes that take place in the environment. It
studies the normal composition and structure of the environment and, the physical and
chemical changes that take place in its composition and structure after the entry of the foreign
agents. The study starts from the chemical nature of these agents at the source, chemical
transformations that take place during the transport, chemical changes they cause in the
composition and the structure of the victims and the ultimate end of the chemical species in the
environment. In other words, the Environmental Chemistry forms the strongest basis of the
Environmental Science.
SCOPE OF ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMISTRY

 It provides the fundamental data about the structure and composition of

the environment under study.
 It constructs a qualitative and quantitative data base for the environmental
chemists and for the environmental scientists, managers, decision makers at
large to plan and carry out environment control projects, frame current
and long term policies to secure favorable environment for the future
generations and exchange information between different countries to join
hands against the future dangers of the pollutants from different sources.
The collection and computation of these data demand high grade skills as
the pollutants may be present in the environment in very small
concentrations such as a few micrograms per cubic meter of air or less than
even one part per million of the liquid pollutants. These may require
specialized and highly sensitive techniques for their assessment and follow
up.
 The Environmental Chemistry presents the mode of action of different kind
of pollutants and suggests measures to prevent or reverse their damages.
 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AS PRODUCT OF
INTERDISCIPLINARY ACTIVITY
 Environmental Science: A complex combination of large number disciplines; Natural, Biological, Medical, Engineering and Social
Sciences.
 Earth as a part of the Solar System
 Its importance due to its being the only planet on which, life positively exists.
 Earth’s Environment: Solar bodies such as stars, galaxies, etc, and the space in which, all of them are located form Earth’s environment.
 Need to have the knowledge of different disciplines
 Astronomy (Location and functions of Solar Bodies), Physics (Interactions), Chemistry (Composition and structure of matter,
concentrations of the pollutants in air and water, on the surface of the Earth and at different targets, computation of data), Geology
(Internal environment of earth), Meteorology
 The environmental scientist needs to know the answers to the following questions:
 What is the atmosphere composed of?
 What are the characteristics of its components?
 How do the gases present in the atmosphere contribute towards the weather?
 How the pollutants are transported from the sources to the targets?
 Many such questions are answered by the disciplines of Chemistry with the help of other disciplines
 Central theme of the Environmental Science is to make Earth a place more suitable for habitation, the study of ecosystems that are the
interactions between biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) environment becomes requisite. The science that helps towards this end is
called Ecology, which is defined as the branch of science that deals with the means that relate life with the natural environment.
 The pollutants attack plants, animals and humans and thus, the involvement of Agriculture, Veterinary Science and different Medical
Sciences becomes due as when targets will be hit, diseases will crop up and their prevention and cure will become obligatory
 The branch of medicine that specially deals with the relationship between the disease and population is called Community Medicine. The
involvement of Hygiene and Sanitary Engineering is due to keeping the environment clean and preventing it from contamination and
pollution.
 Control of pollution: All forms of engineering and technology come into play.
 INTERFACE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL
SCIENCE WITH THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
 Population of any place, country or whole globe as the major determinant of its environmental
situation
 This relationship between population and the environment initiates the growth of interface
between Environmental Science and Social Sciences
 History, Geography and Politics form the base for the development of the social institutions
subsequently studied by Sociology.
 Whenever, the environment are polluted somewhere, the reaction of the affected public is
vented through the political representatives who lodge protests to the authorities concerned
who take steps required for appropriate controls.
 The authorities arrange for inspections and send experts to assess the situation.
 This is the phase where the administrative sciences are involved and subsequently hand over
the task to the discipline of Economics that plays the most important role of calculating the cost
involved to eradicate contamination or eliminate pollution from the affected areas. The project
managers carry all this activity and thus, they plan, appraise and hand over the projects to the
General Management for implementation. This is how the management sciences are involved as
interdisciplinary partners in the environmental affairs.
 The research and development establishments play the role of guides for the evolution of
appropriate technologies requisite for the control of pollution and prevention of future hazards.
 Although, every interdisciplinary contributor plays an
important role in the control of environment, Economics,
these days, is considered as a key factor because the
environmental control is a highly capital intensive
business. This particularly applies to the developing
countries characterized by poverty, hunger,
unemployment, etc, due to small size of their industrial
sectors, scarcity of capital, political exploitation, mutual
conflicts, etc.
RELATIVE GRADING OF INTERFACIAL
DISCIPLINES

 Chemistry as the foundation on which rests the whole

model of Environmental Science as a whole and of all
the disciplines that come into play to support it both
in interpretation of the mode of irritation of
negatively contributing substances in the atmosphere
and their subsequent control and the strong interface
that different disciplines constitute with Chemistry, it
seems imperative to do their grading on the scale of
relative importance.
 RELATIVE GRADING OF INTERFACIAL
DISCIPLINES

 The relative grading can be better done on the basis

to what extent a discipline under consideration forms
the base of other. If a complete analysis is carried out,
no discipline forming an interface with Chemistry or
Environmental Science can be graded better than
Chemistry. Let us take them one by one and compare
them with Chemistry in terms of their contribution
and mutual dependence.
RELATIVE GRADING OF INTERFACIAL
DISCIPLINES
 Physics generally interprets the universe at the macro-level as it displays
the interaction between different bodies which have been structured by
Chemistry. How difficult is to offer the explanation of structural make of
materials? Anyone who is equipped with an average intelligence is well
conscious of it. Physics may claim that I am the one who gave the concept of
nuclear fission and interpreted that the heat and light radiating from the
sun is the consequence of a nuclear reaction that involves the chemical
combination of hydrogen to form helium with the destruction of a certain
quantity of mass and its transformation into energy, Chemistry may claim
that I am an equal contributor to it as I provide the mode of this
transformation and I am the one which classified matter into elements and
compounds, a fundamental concept without which the understanding of the
nature of nuclear reaction was not possible. Similarly, Chemistry gives the
structural make up of fossil fuels and explains their combustion that
proceeds with the evolution of energy that Physics studies after its
evolution.
RELATIVE GRADING OF INTERFACIAL
DISCIPLINES
 Next in importance comes Biology. It studies the structure and function
of the cells that make the structural basis of all cell integration to form
tissues. cells and organs that organize to produce the living body
provides Biology the structure of carbohydrates, proteins and lipids
and even their development from first principles that are electrons,
protons, atoms and molecules without whose function, understanding
of higher structures is not possible. If its importance on practical side is
considered, it helps in the development of means of disposal of solid
and liquid organic pollutants with the help of Activate Sludge Process
that involves degradation of high molecular weight bio-molecules into
low molecular weight compounds through the activity of anaerobic
bacteria, yet the mechanism of whole degradation and disposal is
provided by Chemistry. Moreover, only one branch of Chemistry called
Biochemistry has the edge over all other =sciences that covers fully
both chemical and biological aspect of the process.
RELATIVE GRADING OF INTERFACIAL
DISCIPLINES
 Next we touch on Geology. It is the branch of science
that deals basically with the nature of earth crust
(Lithosphere) which it cannot do without help from
Chemistry. It deals little with other components of
earth’s environment while Chemistry deals with all
four components very strongly.
RELATIVE GRADING OF INTERFACIAL
DISCIPLINES
 Going long way as above, it will be encountered that
all the natural and biological discipline narrated
above are fundamentally dependent on Chemistry for
both theoretical basis and practical performance.
Many are minor contributor towards understanding
of environment, nature of pollutants and mitigation
of irritating substances.
RELATIVE GRADING OF INTERFACIAL
DISCIPLINES
 All the social sciences come into play when the environment stands
disturbed by the irritants. If we drag us into the past, there was no
feeling of disturbance of the environment more than two centuries
ago. The overuse of fossil fuels started after the Industrial
Revolution. Society started pleading in favor of cleanliness of
environment after it was polluted to the danger point. People vented
through the protests and demanded restrictions on the use of
pollution creating materials in industries, vehicles and other
activities concerned in this regard. Economics jumps in the field to
interpret the losses due to the damages caused by different types of
pollution and benefits of their disposal in money terms. It is now
helping also in the cost of d development of diff3rent technologies
for use in pollution control. Thus it has become a very important
discipline in environmental context. Whatever may be its status, its
role still comes after science with the major player that is chemistry.
 CONCLUSION

 After taking into focus all the points made above it can be
concluded with confidence that Chemistry plays the major
role for study of structural make up of environment and of
adverse changes caused by specific agents and how these
changes are reversed by this important discipline. That is
why most of the expert circles involved in the research and
development activity related to the betterment of the
earth’s environment believe that Chemistry plays major
role as an interdisciplinary component of Environmental
Science and contributes more than 75% in environmental
control.