Principles of Environmental Chemistry - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0854043713 ISBN 13: 9780854043712

Verlag: Springer, Berlin, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

This book draws upon sections of the authors' previous text (Understanding our Environment) and reflects the growing trend of a more sophisticated approach to teaching environmental science at university. This new, revised text book focuses on the chemistry involved in environmental problems. It is based upon courses delivered at some of the world s best universities, and worked examples and questions are included in all chapters. Environmental chemistry is becoming increasingly important and is crucial in the understanding of a range of issues, ranging from climate change to local pollution problems. Principles of Environmental Chemistry draws upon sections of the authors' previous text (Understanding our Environment) and reflects the growing trend of a more sophisticated approach to teaching environmental science at university. This new, revised text book focuses on the chemistry involved in environmental problems.
Written by leading experts in the field, the book provides an in depth introduction to the chemical processes influencing the atmosphere, freshwaters, salt waters and soils. Subsequent sections discuss the behaviour of organic chemicals in the environment and environmental transfer between compartments such as air, soil and water. Also included is a section on biogeochemical cycling, which is crucial in the understanding of the behaviour of chemicals in the environment.
Complete with worked examples, the book is aimed at advanced undergraduate and graduate chemistry students studying environmental chemistry.
This is ''an authoritative text that should deservedly feature on office and library shelves wherever there are chemists with interests in the environment''. Mathew Heal

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Roy Harrison OBE is Queen Elizabeth II Birmingham Centenary Professor of Environmental Health at the University of Birmingham. In 2004 he was appointed OBE for services to environmental science. Professor Harrison's research interests lie in the field of environment and human health. His main specialism is in air pollution, from emissions through atmospheric chemical and physical transformations to exposure and effects on human health. Much of this work is designed to inform the development of policy.

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Principles of Environmental Chemistry draws upon sections of the authors' previous text (Understanding our Environment) and reflects the growing trend of a more sophisticated approach to teaching environmental science at university. This new, revised text book focuses on the chemistry involved in environmental problems. Complete with worked examples, the book is aimed at advanced undergraduate and graduate chemistry students studying environmental chemistry.

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Principles of Environmental Chemistry

By Roy M Harrison

The Royal Society of Chemistry

Copyright © 2007 The Royal Society of Chemistry
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-85404-371-2

Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction R.M. Harrison, 1, 
Chapter 2 Chemistry of the Atmosphere P.S. Monks, 8, 
Chapter 3 Chemistry of Freshwaters M.C. Graham and J.G. Farmer, 80, 
Chapter 4 Chemistry of the Oceans S.J. de Mora, 170, 
Chapter 5 The Chemistry of the Solid Earth I.D. Pulford, 234, 
Chapter 6 Environmental Organic Chemistry C.J. Halsall, 279, 
Chapter 7 Biogeochemical Cycling of Chemicals R.M. Harrison, 314, 
Glossary, 347, 
Subject Index, 354, 

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

ROY M. HARRISON

Division of Environmental Health and Risk Management, School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, B15 2TT, Birmingham, UK

1.1 THE ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

It may surprise the student of today to learn that 'the environment' has not always been topical and indeed that environmental issues have become a matter of widespread public concern only over the past 20 years or so. Nonetheless, basic environmental science has existed as a facet of human scientific endeavour since the earliest days of scientific investigation. In the physical sciences, disciplines such as geology, geophysics, meteorology, oceanography, and hydrology, and in the life sciences, ecology, have a long and proud scientific tradition. These fundamental environmental sciences underpin our understanding of the natural world and its current-day counterpart perturbed by human activity, in which we all live.

The environmental physical sciences have traditionally been concerned with individual environmental compartments. Thus, geology is centred primarily on the solid earth, meteorology on the atmosphere, oceanography upon the salt-water basins, and hydrology upon the behaviour of fresh waters. In general (but not exclusively) it has been the physical behaviour of these media which has been traditionally perceived as important. Accordingly, dynamic meteorology is concerned primarily with the physical processes responsible for atmospheric motion, and climatology with temporal and spatial patterns in physical properties of the atmosphere (temperature, rainfall, etc.). It is only more recently that chemical behaviour has been perceived as being important in many of these areas. Thus, while atmospheric chemical processes are at least as important as physical processes in many environmental problems such as stratospheric ozone depletion, the lack of chemical knowledge has been extremely acute as atmospheric chemistry (beyond major component ratios) only became a matter of serious scientific study in the 1950s.

There are two major reasons why environmental chemistry has flourished as a discipline only rather recently. Firstly, it was not previously perceived as important. If environmental chemical composition is relatively invariant in time, as it was believed to be, there is little obvious relevance to continuing research. Once, however, it is perceived that composition is changing (e.g. CO2 in the atmosphere; 137Cs in the Irish Sea) and that such changes may have consequences for humankind, the relevance becomes obvious. The idea that using an aerosol spray in your home might damage the stratosphere, although obvious to us today, would stretch the credulity of someone unaccustomed to the concept. Secondly, the rate of advance has in many instances been limited by the available technology. Thus, for example, it was only in the 1960s that sensitive reliable instrumentation became widely available for measurement of trace concentrations of metals in the environment. This led to a massive expansion in research in this field and a substantial downward revision of agreed typical concentration levels due to improved methodology in analysis. It was only as a result of James Lovelock's invention of the electron capture detector that CFCs were recognised as minor atmospheric constituents and it became possible to monitor increases in their concentrations (see Table 1). The table exemplifies the sensitivity of analysis required since concentrations are at the ppt level (1 ppt is one part in 10 by volume in the atmosphere) as well as the substantial increasing trends in atmospheric halocarbon concentrations, as measured up to 1990. The implementation of the Montreal Protocol, which requires controls on production of CFCs and some other halocarbons, has led to a slowing and even a reversal of annual concentration trends since 1992 (see Table 1).

1.2 ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMICAL PROCESSES

The chemical reactions affecting trace gases in the atmosphere generally have quite significant activation energies and thus occur on a timescale of minutes, days, weeks, or years. Consequently, the change to such chemicals is determined by the rates of their reactions and atmospheric chemistry is intimately concerned with the study of reactions kinetics. On the other hand, some processes in aquatic systems have very low activation energies and reactions occur extremely rapidly. In such circumstances, provided there is good mixing, the chemical state of matter may be determined far more by the thermodynamic properties of the system than by the rates of chemical processes and therefore chemical kinetics.

The environment contains many trace substances at a wide range of concentrations and under different temperature and pressure conditions. At very high temperatures such as can occur at depth in the solid earth, thermodynamics may also prove important in determining, for example, the release of trace gases from volcanic magma. Thus, the study of environmental chemistry requires a basic knowledge of both chemical thermodynamics and chemical kinetics and an appreciation of why one or other is important under particular circumstances. As a broad generalisation it may be seen that much of the chapter on atmospheric chemistry is dependent on knowledge of reaction rates and underpinned by chemical kinetics, whereas the chapters on freshwater and ocean chemistry and the aqueous aspects of the soils are very much concerned with equilibrium processes and hence chemical thermodynamics. It should not however be assumed that these generalisations are universally true. For example, the breakdown of persistent organic pollutants in the aquatic environment is determined largely by chemical kinetics, although the partitioning of such substances between different environmental media (air, water, soil) is determined primarily by their thermo-dynamic properties and to a lesser degree by their rates of transfer.

1.3 ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMICALS

This book is not concerned explicitly with chemicals as pollutants. This is a topic covered by a companion volume on Pollution Science. This book, however, is nonetheless highly relevant to the understanding of chemical pollution phenomena. The major areas of coverage are as follows:

(i) The chemistry of freshwaters. Freshwaters comprise three different major components. The first is the water itself, which inevitably contains dissolved substances, both inorganic and organic. Its properties are to a very significant degree determined by the inorganic solutes, and particularly those which determine its hardness and alkalinity. The second component is suspended sediment, also referred to as suspended solids. These are particles, which are sufficiently small to remain suspended with the water column for significant periods of time...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Springer, Berlin
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2007
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0854043713
• ISBN 13: 9780854043712
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 280
• Herausgeber: Harrison Roy M.
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland