Heavy metals could be in my water?! It has been estimated that approximately 1 billion people do not have access to clean drinking water per year and 2 million people suffer from casualties each year due to contaminated water. This Continue reading
Most Americans are familiar with pesticides and use them in their homes and yards on a regular basis. Sometimes more specifically referred to as insecticides or herbicides, products like ‘RoundUp’ and ‘Raid’ are staples of many sheds and garages. And Continue reading
Chlordane’s rocky history In Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring (published in 1962), Carson warns the readers against the evil chlordane, a chemical that is capable of mass destruction on both the environment and the health of humans and other organisms. It was introduced Continue reading
Chlordane in Tecolote Canyon? Especially during a time of changing environmental protection legislation, it remains important to discuss the long-lasting presence of many pesticides and other pollutants. In an analysis of chlordane, a termite pesticide, in both Tecolote Canyon and Continue reading
Heavy metals in the terms we view them as environmentalists are characterized by their capacity to do harm through toxicity. Heavy metals are commonly used in medical tools and are essential to our technological era due to their versatility and Continue reading
Impact of Coal-burning Power Plants on Newborn Health In 2004, a major coal-burning power plant in Tongliang, China was closed. A study was conducted on children conceived and born before and after the closure to observe the health effects of Continue reading
What are PCB’s and are they bad? Polychlorinated biphenyls, PCB’s, are a class of 209 molecules widely used in industry as coolants, plasticizers, waterproofing materials, and other uses. Producing PCB’s entailed reacting biphenyl in the presence of chlorine, so the Continue reading
Polluting Planet Earth Back in 2017, the tropical Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, TX with so much rain that it flooded one of the Superfund sites, an area designated by the Environmental Protection Agency that requires action to remove health/environmental hazards. The Continue reading
Each group at the University of San Diego’s Chem 355 laboratory performed a lab where bio diesel was synthesized and and glycerol was obtained as a waste product. The glycerol could have been discarded but what is the fun in Continue reading
When we were synthesizing biodiesel using the waste oil from our school cafeteria, glycerol is the by-product. Since we did not want to dump this by-product into the waste bottle. We decided to use glycerol to make glycerin soap! Glycerin Continue reading
