Interactions of Chemistry and the Environment, Part 4
Question 1: Discuss biodegradable waste.
Answer 1: Biodegradable waste can be recycled into useful material by biological decomposition. There are two mechanisms by which this can occur. The most common mechanism of recycling of household organic waste is home composting or municipal curbside collection of green wastes sent to large scale composting plants.Alternatively organic waste can be converted into biogas and soil improver using anaerobic digestion. Here organic wastes are broken down by anaerobic microorganisms in biogas plants. The biogas can be converted into renewable electricity or burnt for environmentally friendly heating. Advanced technologies such as mechanical biological treatment are able to sort the recyclable elements of the waste out before biological treatment by either composting, anaerobic digestion, or biodrying.
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Question 2: Define the term petroleum.
Answer 2: Petroleum is used to describe a broad range of hydrocarbons that are found as gases, liquids, or solids beneath the surface of the earth. The two most common forms are natural gas and crude oil.
Question 3: Describe natural gas.
Answer 3: Natural gas is a mixture of lightweight alkanes. A typical sample of natural gas when it is collected at its source contains 80 ethane (C2H6), 6 butane and isobutane (C4H10), and 3 pentanes (C5H12). The C3, C4, and C5 hydrocarbons are removed before the gas is sold. The commercial natural gas delivered to the customer is therefore primarily a mixture of methane and ethane. The propane and butanes removed from natural gas are usually liquefied under pressure and sold as liquefied petroleum gases (LPG).
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