An Introduction to Environmental Chemistry

(Rick Simeone) #1

2


Environmental


Chemist’s Toolbox


2.1 About this chapter


Undergraduate students studying environmental science come from a wide
variety of academic backgrounds. Some have quite advanced chemical knowledge,
while others have almost none. Whatever your background, we want you to
understand some of the chemical details encountered in environmental issues and
problems. To do this you will need some basic understanding of fundamental
chemistry. As a rule, we find most students like to learn a particular aspect of
chemistry where they need it to understand a specific problem. Learning ma-
terial for a specific application is much easier than wading through pages of
what can seem rather dull or irrelevant facts. Consequently much of the basic
chemistry is distributed throughout the book in boxes, sited where the concept
is first needed to understand a term or process.
Some of the basic chemistry is, however, so fundamental—underpinning most
sections of the book—that we describe it here in a dedicated chapter. We have
laid out enough information for students with little or no chemistry background
to get a foothold into the subject. You may only need to ‘dip’ into this material.
We certainly don’t expect you to read this chapter from beginning to end. Imagine
the contents here as tools in a toolbox. Take out the tool (=facts, laws, etc.) you
need to get the job (=understanding an aspect of environmental chemistry) done.
Some of you will not need to read this chapter at all, and can move on to the
more exciting parts of the book!


2.2 Order in the elements?


Most of the chemistry in this book revolves around elements and isotopes (see
Box 1.1). It is therefore helpful to understand how the atomic number (Z) of an

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