The Use of Chemistry in Daily Life
Chemistry is a big part
of your everyday life. You find chemistry in daily life in the foods you eat,
the air you breathe, cleaning chemicals, your emotions and literally every
object you can see or touch. Here's a look at 10 examples of everyday chemistry. Some
common chemistry may be obvious, but others might surprise you.
1. Elements in
the Human Body
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Your body is
made up of chemical compounds, which are combinations of elements. While you
probably know your body is mostly water, which is hydrogen and oxygen, can you
name the other elements that make you ... you?
What
Are the Elements in the Human Body?
Answer:
Most of the human body is made up of water, H2O,
with cells consisting of 65-90% water by weight. Therefore, it isn't surprising
that most of a human
body's mass is oxygen. Carbon, the basic unit for organic molecules,
comes in second. 99% of the mass of the human
body is made up of just six elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen,
nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus.
You may also wish to view the element
composition of an average human body by mass.
- Oxygen (65%)
- Carbon (18%)
- Hydrogen (10%)
- Nitrogen (3%)
- Calcium (1.5%)
- Phosphorus (1.0%)
- Potassium (0.35%)
- Sulfur (0.25%)
- Sodium (0.15%)
- Magnesium (0.05%)
- Copper, Zinc, Selenium, Molybdenum, Fluorine, Chlorine, Iodine, Manganese, Cobalt, Iron (0.70%)
- Lithium, Strontium, Aluminum, Silicon, Lead, Vanadium, Arsenic, Bromine (trace amounts)
Have you ever wondered how much the elements in
your body are worth? First, let's take a look at the elements from which you
are made.
Your
body is made of:
- 65% Oxygen
- 18% Carbon
- 10% Hydrogen
- 3% Nitrogen
- 1.5% Calcium
- 1% Phosphorous
- 0.35% Potassium
- 0.25% Sulfur
- 0.15% Sodium
- 0.15% Chlorine
- 0.05% Magnesium
- 0.0004% Iron
- 0.00004% Iodine
2.
Chemistry of Love
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The emotions
that you feel are a result of chemical messengers, primarily neurotransmitters.
Love, jealousy, envy, infatuation and infidelity all share a basis in
chemistry.
Is
There Really a Chemistry of Love?
Answer:
Scientists haven't developed any magic love potions that you
can use to make someone fall in love, but chemistry does play an important role
in how a relationship progresses.
Chemistry and Stages of Love
First, there's attraction. Nonverbal
communication plays a big part in initial attraction and some of this
communication may involve pheromones, a form of chemical communication.
Did you know that raw lust is characterized by high levels of testosterone? The sweaty palms and pounding heart of
infatuation are caused by higher than normal levels of
norepinepherine. Meanwhile, the 'high' of being in love is due to a rush
of phenylethylamine and dopamine.
All is not lost once the honeymoon is over.
Lasting love confers chemical benefits in the form of stabilized production of
serotonin and oxytocin. Can infidelity be blamed on chemistry? Perhaps in part.
Researchers have found that suppression of vasopressin can cause males (voles,
anyway) to abandon their love nest and seek new mates. Hey, you gotta have
chemistry!
3. How Soap Cleans
Soap
is a chemical that mankind has been making for a very long time. You can form a
crude soap by mixing ashes and animal fat. How can something so nasty actually
make you cleaner? The answer has to do with the way soap interacts with
oil-based grease and grime.
Soaps are sodium or potassium fatty acids salts,
produced from the hydrolysis of fats in a chemical reaction
called saponification. Each soap molecule has a long
hydrocarbon chain, sometimes called its 'tail', with a carboxylate 'head'. In
water, the sodium or potassium ions float free, leaving a negatively-charged
head.
Soap is an excellent cleanser because of its ability
to act as an emulsifying agent.
An emulsifier is capable of dispersing one liquid
into another immiscible liquid. This means that while oil (which attracts dirt)
doesn't naturally mix with water, soap can suspend oil/dirt in such a way that
it can be removed.
The organic part of a natural soap is a
negatively-charged, polar molecule. Its hydrophilic (water-loving) carboxylate
group (-CO2) interacts with water molecules via ion-dipole
interactions and hydrogen bonding. The hydrophobic (water-fearing) part of a
soap molecule, its long, nonpolar hydrocarbon chain, does not interact with
water molecules. The hydrocarbon chains are attracted to each other by dispersion
forces and cluster together, forming structures called micelles. In
these micelles, the carboxylate groups form a negatively-charged spherical
surface, with the hydrocarbon chains inside the sphere. Because they are
negatively charged, soap micelles repel each other and remain dispersed in
water.
Grease and oil are nonpolar and insoluble in
water. When soap and soiling oils are mixed, the nonpolar hydrocarbon portion
of the micelles break up the nonpolar oil molecules. A different type of
micelle then forms, with nonpolar soiling molecules in the center. Thus, grease
and oil and the 'dirt' attached to them are caught inside the micelle and can
be rinsed away.
Although soaps are excellent cleansers, they do have disadvantages. As salts of
weak acids, they are converted by mineral acids into free fatty acids:
CH3(CH2)16CO2-Na+
+ HCl → CH3(CH2)16CO2H + Na+
+ Cl-
These fatty acids are less soluble than the
sodium or potassium salts and form a precipitate or soap scum. Because of this,
soaps are ineffective in acidic water. Also, soaps form insoluble salts in hard
water, such as water containing magnesium, calcium, or iron.
2 CH3(CH2)16CO2-Na+
+ Mg2+ → [CH3(CH2)16CO2-]2Mg2+
+ 2 Na+
The insoluble salts form bathtub rings, leave
films that reduce hair luster, and gray/roughen textiles after repeated
washings. Synthetic detergents, however, may be soluble in both acidic and
alkaline solutions and don't form insoluble precipitates in hard water.
4. Is It Okay To Use Laundry Detergent in the Dishwasher?
You
can apply chemistry to decide when and where to use household chemicals. While
you might think detergent is detergent, so it's interchangeable from one
application to another, there are some good reasons why laundry detergent
should stay in the washing machine.
Yes, you could put laundry detergent in your
dishwasher. Should you? Probably not. Here's why.
Modern laundry detergents tend not to produce
mountains of bubbles, but there are other good reasons to not substitute
laundry detergent for dishwashing detergent.
One reason is that you likely void the warranty on the appliance if you use a
product not made for dishwashers. You may be exposing yourself to toxins, too.
The detergent itself may be the same from one product to the other, but laundry
detergents may contain brighteners, fragrances, stain removers, and
anti-soiling chemicals that you don't really need volatilized by the heat of
your dishwasher so that you breathe them. The ingredients in
laundry detergent might not rinse completely from your dishes.
If you are desperate for a way to wash your
dishes, you can try cleaning them in the sink using other types of soap or
detergent. You could try bar soap, liquid soap, or bath gel. Shampoo might
leave a residue on your dishes. Laundry detergent
might leave a residue, too, but at least you would have more control over
rinsing in the sink compared with the dishwasher.
5. Why Ice Floats
There are two parts to the answer for this
question. First, let's take a look at why anything floats. Then, let's examine
why ice floats on top of liquid water, instead of sinking to the bottom.
Why
Ice Floats
A substance floats if it is less dense, or has
less mass per unit volume, than other components in a mixture. For example, if
you toss a handful of rocks into a bucket of water, the rocks, which are dense
compared to the water, will sink.
The water, which is less dense than the rocks, will float. Basically, the rocks
push the water out of the way or displace it. For an object to be able to
float, it has to displace a weight of fluid equal to its own weight.
Water reaches its maximum density at 4 C (40 F).
As it cools further and freezes into ice, it actually becomes less dense. On
the other hand, most substances are most dense in their solid (frozen) state
than in their liquid state. Water is different because of hydrogen
bonding.
A water
molecule is made from one oxygen atom
and two hydrogen atoms, strongly joined to each other with covalent bonds. Water molecules are also attracted to each
other by weaker
chemical bonds (hydrogen bonds) between the positively-charged hydrogen
atoms and the negatively-charged oxygen atoms
of neighboring water molecules. As water cools below 4 C, the hydrogen
bonds adjust to hold the negatively charged oxygen atoms apart.
This produces a crystal lattice,
which is commonly known as 'ice'.
Ice floats because it is about 9% less dense than
liquid water. In other words, ice takes up about 9% more space than water, so a
liter of ice weighs less than a liter water. The heavier water displaces the
lighter ice, so ice floats to the top.
One consequence of this is that lakes and rivers freeze from top to bottom,
allowing fish to survive even when the surface of a lake has frozen over. If
ice sank, the water would be displaced to the top and exposed to the colder
temperature, forcing rivers and lakes to fill with ice and freeze solid.
6. Can Bottled Water Go Bad?
Food
goes bad because of chemical reactions that occur between food molecules. Fats
can become rancid. Bacteria grow that can make you sick. What about products
that don't contain fat? Can bottled water go bad?
Most bottled water has an expiration date stamped
on the bottle, but does the bottled water actually go bad? If so, how long is
bottled water good? Here's the answer to this common question.
Although bottled water has an expiration date, it
doesn't actually go bad. Why is there an expiration date on a product that
doesn't go bad? This is because New Jersey requires all food and beverages,
including water, to carry an expiration date on its packaging.
It doesn't matter if you don't live in New Jersey... your water may carry an
expiration date anyway to make it easier to standardize packaging. Some bottled
water only carries its bottling date or a 'best by' date. These dates are
helpful because the flavor of the water will change over time as it absorbs
chemicals from its packaging. The flavor will not necessarily be bad, but it
may be noticeable.
Leaching of chemicals from packaging is a health
concern, but as far as toxic
chemicals go, you can get exposure to most of those chemicals from
freshly bottled water
as well as bottled water that has been on the shelf a while. A 'plastic' taste
is not necessarily an indicator that the water is bad; absence of an unpleasant
flavor does not mean the water is free from contaminants.
While algae and bacteria will not grow in sealed
bottled water, the situation changes once the seal has been broken.
You should consume or discard
water within two weeks after opening it.
7. How Sunscreen Works
Sunscreen
uses chemistry to filter or block the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays to protect
you from a sunburn, skin cancer, or both. Do you know how sunscreen works or
what an SPF rating really means?
How
Does Sunscreen Work?
Answer:
Sunscreen Versus Sunblock
Sunscreen combines organic and inorganic
chemicals to filter the light from the sun so that less of it reaches the
deeper layers of your skin. Like a screen door, some light penetrates, but not
as much as if the door wasn't present. Sunblock, on the other hand, reflects or
scatters the light away so that it doesn't reach the skin at all.
The reflective particles in sunblocks usually consist of zinc oxide or titanium
oxide. In the past, you could tell who was using a sunblock just by looking,
because the sunblock whited out the skin. Not all modern sunblocks are visible
because the oxide particles are smaller, though you can still find the
traditional white zinc oxide. Sunscreens usually include sunblocks as part of
their active ingredients.
What
Sunscreens Screen
The portion of the sunlight that is filtered or
blocked is ultraviolet
radiation. There are three regions of ultraviolet light.
- UV-A penetrates deeply into the skin and can lead to cancer and premature skin aging.
- UV-B is involved in tanning and burning of your skin.
- UV-C is completely absorbed by the earth's atmosphere.
The organic molecules in sunscreen absorb the
ultraviolet radiation and release it as heat.
- PABA (para-aminobenzoic acid) absorbs UVB
- Cinnamates absorb UVB
- Benzophenones absorb UVA
- Anthranilates absorb UVA and UVB
- Ecamsules absorb UVA
What
SPF Means
SPF stands for Sun Protection Factor. It's a number that you
can use to help determine how long you can stay in the sun before getting a
sunburn. Since sunburns are caused by UV-B radiation, SPF does not indicate
protection from UV-A, which can cause cancer and premature aging of the skin.
Your skin has a natural SPF, partially determined by how much melanin you have,
or how darkly pigmented your skin is. The SPF is a multiplication factor. If
you can stay out in the sun 15 minutes before burning, using a
sunscreen with an SPF of 10 would allow you to resist the burn for
10x longer or 150 minutes.
Although the SPF only applies to UV-B, the labels
of most products indicate if they offer broad spectrum protection, which is
some indication of whether or not they work against UV-A radiation. The
particles in sunblock reflect both UV-A and UV-B.
Another example:
1. Industries and
Transport:
From cloth mills,
lather factories, petro-chemical industries and refineries to metal industries-
all use numerous fuels for power generation and chemical products for
processing their product and improve the equality and simultaneously produce
pollution. Now-a-days chemical effluent treatment plants use chemicals to
control or neutralist he hazardous impact of pollutants produced by the industries.
Aviation and shipping industries generate power through power plants which burn
fuels. Petrol and diesel emit out green house gases dangerous for the survival
on earth which damage the ozone layer that protects us from UV rays. As a
result global warming has taken place which is a destroyer of the planet earth.
But again Chemistry paves the way with bio-fuels.
The famous green
revolution to increase agricultural produce so as to ensure food security was
triggered by the advent of inorganic fertilizers. Since then fertilizers are
extensively used by farmers to restore the fertility of soil in the fields.
Pesticides are used to protect the crop during farming and preserve the grains
from pests, rats and mice during storage. Genetically modified seeds which are
used to enhance production and earn profits through export of food grains are
agricultural applications of Bio-chemistry. Whereas refrigeration system for
cold storage of vegetables and raw meat uses Poly Urethanes Foam (PUF) and the
chemical properties of gases, the preservatives in packaged food products are
known to have adverse impact on our body.
3. Science and
Technology:
The destructive effects
of Atom Bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Generations in Japan have
suffered the devastation and there has-been no solace. The threat of weapons of
mass-destruction (WMDs) like the Nuclear, Chemical and Biological weapons looms
large on the Humanity. Terrorists are using RDX and other explosives to run
currents of fear down the spines across the globe. Nuclear reactors which are
going to serve the future generations through power generation leave us with
the problem of Nuclear Waste Management. Whereas the destructive power is
generated through chains of chemical reactions, we remain assured that
Chemistry has facilitated the chain of counter measures too in the form of
safety suites and NBC resistant bunkers. Forensic science- the comprehensive
scientific analysis of material evidence in the context of the law uses
principles of chemistry to facilitate crime investigation. Tele-communications,
Information Technology and Space Missions- all bank on the chemistry of
semi-conductor sand nano-tubes.
it is very need to
understand basic chemistry so that we can understand how vitamins, supplements,
and drugs can help or harm us. Part of the importance’s of chemistry lies in
developing and testing new medical treatments and medicines.
5. Fragrance
Fragrance is
another chemical that is closely related to our daily life. We can obtain
deodorant from both natural and synthetic materials. In addition to substances
that give rise to scented fragrances, fragrances sold on the market usually
contain other substances, such as alcohols for liquid perfumes and alum for
dense in formers. In addition to alcohol, there are still a variety of other
additives that are deliberately added to the perfume so that the perfume is
easily sprayed (the substance serves as propellant). Among the additives that
can serve as propellants there are those that can pollute the environment.
6. Benefits
of Chemistry in the Field of Law
Chemistry in
the field of law plays a role in proving the Case of Law, for example: Someone
mixed kerosene into petrol and then traded. To determine whether the gasoline
was mixed with kerosene, laboratory tests were conducted.
Can you explain chemical reaction in our lungs?
BalasHapusC6H12O6 + O2
HapusGlucose + oxygen is the reaction that we do when respiration occurs
CO2 + H2O
Carbon dioxide + water vapor is the substance we release after respiration.
What if in our mouth there is no buffer solution? What is the name of the buffer solution in the mouth?
BalasHapusThe buffer solution is very important in life, for example Teeth can dissolve if inserted in a strong acid solution. Email a damaged tooth can cause germs into the tooth. The saliva can keep the pH at the mouth of about 6.8. Saliva contains a phosphate buffer solution that can neutralize the acid formed from the fermentation of food scraps.
HapusAre there any negative effects of chemicals in the health field?
BalasHapusIn addition to the benefits of chemicals that can help improve human life. There are also some negative chemical effects on health.
HapusThe effects of chemicals, both acute and chronic, on health depend on the concentration and duration of exposure. The harmful effects of chemicals can cause the following:
Causes Irritation, ie local burns caused by contact or chemicals with certain body parts, such as skin, eyes, or respiratory tract.
Causes Corrosive, ie tissue damage.
Allergies, appear as small red spots or bubbles filled with fluid, or respiratory distress in the form of shortness of breath, blocked breath and shortness of breath, especially at night.
Causes difficulty breathing, such as choking or aspixian; Due to lack of oxygen due to being bound by inert gases, such as nitrogen and carbon dioxide.
Causes Systemic Poisoning, because chemicals that can affect parts of the body, including damage to the liver, kidneys, nervous system, and others.
Cause Cancer, due to long-term exposure to chemicals, thus stimulating the growth of uncontrolled cells in the form of malignant tumors.
Causes fetal damage / abnormalities, characterized by birth in disability and sterility.
Causes Pnemoconiosis, the heap of dust in the lungs so that the ability of the lungs to absorb oxygen becomes less. As a result, sufferers experience shortness of breath.
Cause Anesthesia, a chemical that can interfere with the central nervous system that causes people unconsciousness, fainting or death.
Why soap can remove stains and foaming ???
BalasHapusThe soap can be frothy, fragrant and clean because it is alkaline and contains C-O- (polar and hydrofil) dissolves in water to form the foam and binds the dirt particles to form an emulsion. Then, the soap can be cleaned because R- (non polar and hydrophobic) will split the molecules of oil and dirt into smaller particles so that water is easy to form emulsions with impurities and easily separated.
Hapus"As a result global warming has taken place which is a destroyer of the planet earth. But again Chemistry paves the way with bio-fuels."
Please explain about bio-fuel