AQUATIC CHEMISTRY
- Ever wonder why a cup of water on your counter has a pH of 5.6 and not 7?
- Climate Change research suggests the oceans will acidify with increased carbon dioxide levels. Ever wonder why or how that happens?
- One of the greatest environmental catastrophes of our time is the poisoning of millions of residents of Bangladesh and West Bengal from arsenic in groundwater. Where is the arsenic coming from and what form is toxic? How can we clean the water?
- Bleach is used as a disinfectant, but do you know what it is, and under what conditions it works best?
- Utilities like our coal fired power plants were forced to reduce SO2 emissions because of its delterious impact on natural waters and the build environment. What is acid rain and why were the statues eroding?
At USF, Aquatic Chemistry is a 3 credit graduate course that uses the concept of chemical equilibrium to understand the behavior of chemical species in various water environments, whether natural or engineered. After taking this course students will be able to:
- Understand aqueous chemical equilibrium and solve problems that involve:
- acid-base equilibrium (How much will my river water change if an acidic waste stream starts to discharge into it?)
- heterogeneous equilibria (How much will the pH of my water change if atmospheric CO2 levels increased to 500 ppm? How do I get rid of the precipitates that clog waterless urinals?)
- coordination chemistry (What happens to heavy metals like lead in my drinking water when the amount of other chemicals added during disinfection changes?)
- redox reactions (What's a good chemical that I can use to oxidize (covert) an organic contaminant into CO2 and water?)
- surface chemistry (How does my Brita filter work and what local materials can I use to remove heavy metals like arsenic from my water?)
- Comprehend literature covering chemical equilibria as it relates to water chemistry.
What is Aquatic chemistry? Here's what some of the text book writers say:
“Over the past several decades, the field of environmental aquatic chemistry has expanded to encompass studies of the source, distribution, transport, reaction rates, and fate of chemicals in natural aquatic systems, while maintaining its historical links to chemistry of water treatment processes.” Benjamin, 2000
“Aquatic chemistry is concerned with the chemical reactions and processes affecting the distribution and circulation of chemical species in natural waters. The objectives include the development of a theoretical basis for the chemical behavior of ocean waters, estuaries, rivers, lakes, groundwaters, and soil water systems, as well as the description of processes involved in water technology.” Stumm and Morgan, 1996
“Over the past decade the subject of aquatic chemistry has evolved to take a more detailed mechanistic view of the reactions that control the chemistry of natural waters; it has also broadened to encompass the elemental cycles that determine the overall chemistry of the biosphere.” Morel and Hering, 1993
“A knowledge of water chemistry is important in understanding the processes governing a wide variety of aquatic situations. The specific environmental settings in which aquatic chemistry is important include:
- Lakes
- Rivers
- Groundwaters/soil/water/air systems
- Estuaries
- Oceans
- Sediments
- water treatment
- aerosols and hdyrosols rain.” Pankow, 1991
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Recommended texts:
(1) Water Chemistry, Benjamin (McGraw-Hill, 2002)
Website for textbook: http://www.waveland.com/Titles/Benjamin.htm. An erratum can be downloaded from this website. Please go through the textbook and make the necessary changes.
Reference Texts:
1. Aquatic chemistry : chemical equilibria and rates in natural waters/Stumm, Werner
2. Aquatic chemistry concepts/Pankow, James F.
3. Aquatic surface chemistry : chemical processes at the particle-water interface/Stumm, W.
4. Environmental chemistry/Manahan, Stanley E.
5. Environmental soil and water chemistry : principles and applications/Evangelou, V. P.
6. Geochemical reaction modeling/Bethke, Craig (Personal Copy)
7. Principles and applications of aquatic chemistry/Morel, François
8. Water chemistry/Benjamin, Mark M.
9. Water chemistry/Snoeyink, Vernon L. |
