Chemicals in the Environment
What do the numbers on fertilizer bags indicate?
Ex) 50-30-80
First number: nitrogen content
Second number: phosphorus content
Third number: Potassium content
List the range of bases on the pH scale.
8-14
What makes something an organic compound?
It must contain carbon (C)
What compound is the main concern for global warming?
Carbon Dioxide
A pollutant leaves it's source point and spreads out. What is this process called
Dispersion
When waste water/sewage is released from a factory or residential area into nearby water sources such as lakes, rivers, and streams, it is called:
Effluent
What is normally produced from a typical neutralization reaction?
(include the chemical formula)
Water (H2O) and salt (NaCl)
*in some cases carbon dioxide (CO2)
If compound/element is needed in very small amounts (Zinc in humans), it is called a:
Micronutrient
Sulphur compounds are burned in factories causing Sulphur oxides to be released into the air. This Sulphur can then form H2SO4 (Sulfuric acid). What environmental effect does this cause?
Acid Rain
Water enters the ground after rainfall. It soaks down into the soil. If the water enters the space BELOW the water table, where there are only water molecules and no air molecules, what is this space called?
Groundwater Zone
When fertilizers from agricultural fields run off through surface water and into nearby lakes and ponds, it can cause:
Algal Blooms
A solution is tested using red litmus paper. After being dipped in the solution, the litmus paper did not change colour. What is the possible pH for the substance?
1-6
Describe hydrolysis and when it occurs.
Water is used to break-down food/molecules. This occurs during digestion.
What are water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrogen called?
In high amounts, what effect do they have on the Earth collectively?
Greenhouse Gasses
High levels cause the Earth to increase in temperature causing climate change.
A factory dumps pollutants into a river. As the pollutants travel further away from the source point, what happens to the concentration?
it becomes diluted (the concentration decreases)
Free nitrogen in the air can be turned into useable compounds. What is this process called and what are the two ways it can occur?
Nitrogen fixation
Caused by lightning strikes and bacteria in roots and soil.
Universal indicator paper is used to determine the pH of a solution. The paper turns red at the lowest pH, orange at neutral, green at slightly basic and purple at the 2 highest pH. If the solution turned the paper a orangish green colour. What is the possible pH?
7-12
Answer both of these questions:
1. When water moves across a semipermeable membrane without using energy, what is it called and what direction does it move in.
2. When NON-WATER particles a similar process of spreading out (also without energy), what is it called.
1. Osmosis, it moves to areas of high water content to low water content (across the concentration gradient)
2. Diffusion (from high concentration to low)
A substance was tested on a group of 60 mice. When given 2mg/kg, 6 mice died. When given 10mg/kg 15 mice died. When given 17mg/kg, 30 mice died. Finally when given 20mg/kg, all mice died.
What is the LD50 of this substance and what does LD50 mean?
LD50=30
Lethal dose that causes 50% of a tested population to die.
What is the difference between Phytoremediation and Phytolysis?
Phytoremediation is the absorption of pollution by plants
Photolysis is the breakdown of compounds using sunlight
Every year, A farmer uses the same chemical to kill all the ants in their field. After 10 years, the farmer notices their crops are being damaged by ants at increasingly high amounts. What do you call the type of chemical being used and why is the farmer experiencing this level of crop damage?
Pesticides
The ants are becoming resistant to the pesticide since the same chemical has been used year after year.
Hydrochloric acid has a pH of 1 and water has a pH of 7. How many times MORE acidic is hydrochloric acid than water
1 000 000 times more acidic
Very briefly, list what these substances do in the body:
1. Carbohydrates
2. Proteins
3. Lipids
4. Nucleic Acids
1. Carbohydrates: Provide energy
2. Lipids: Storage of fats and oils (long term energy storage)
3. Proteins: Build amino acids, make up important body structures
4. Nucleic Acids: store genetic information (DNA), blueprint for the body
A chemical is dumped into a lake. By looking at the levels organic life in the lake, we can determine whether the chemical was safe or harmful. Scientists looked at mosquito larva, mayfly larva and water strider populations. For both mosquito and mayfly larva, the populations decreased after dumping, while the water strider populations slightly increased. Is the chemical likely harmful or safe based on this data?
Because the majority of biological indicator species decreased, the chemical was likely harmful.
There is .001 g of a pollutant in every piece of algae in a lake. Water skippers eat 50 peices of aglea as their diet. A salmon eats 100 water skippers as their diet. If a bear eats 10 salmon, how many grams of the pollutant will the bear have accumulated through biomagnification?
0.001g x 50 = 0.05g in each water skipper
0.05g x 100 = 5 g in each salmon
5g x 10 = 50g in the bear
50 grams of pollutant