Chemistry Ch. 1: The Air We Breathe

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Percent (%)

Parts per 100

Megacities

Urban areas with 10 million people or more

Volatile Organic Compounds(VOCs)

carbon containing compounds that pass easily into vapor phase

Nanotechnology

the creation of materials at the atomic and molecular (nanometer) scale

Groups

Elements fall into vertical columns which organize elements according to important properties that they have in common and are numbered from left to right

Periodic Table

Most common way of arranging the elements

Chemical Symbols

One- or two-letter abbreviations for the elements

Toxicity

The intrinsic health hazard of a substance

Troposhere

The lower region pf the atmosphere in which we live that lies directly above the surface of the Earth. Contains the air currents and turbulent storms that turn and mix our air.

Catalyst

a chemical substance that participates in chemical reaction and influences its rate without itself undergoing permanent change

Compund

a pure substance made up of two or more different elements in a fixed, characteristic chemical combination

Green Chemistry

a set of key ideas to guide all in the chemical community

Chemical formula

a symbolic way to represent the elementary composition of a substance

Organic Compound

always contain carbon, almost always contains hydrogen, may contain other elements like oxygen and nitrogen

Hydrocarbons

compounds made up only of the elements carbon and hydrogen

Metals

elements that are shiny and conduct electricity and heat well

Nonmetals

elements that do not conduct heat or electricity well and have no one characteristic appearance

Metalloids

elements that lied between metals and nonmetals on the periodic table and do not fall cleanly into either category

Sustainability

meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs

Diatomic substance

molecule consisting of two atoms

Element

one of the 100 or so pure substances in our world from which compounds are formed

Mixture

physical combination of two or more pure substances present in variable amounts.

Chemical reaction

process whereby substances described as reactants are transformed into different substances called products

Ambient Air

refers to the amount of air surrounding us

Chemical equation

representation of a chemical reaction using formulas

Volatile

substance readily passes into vapor phase

Exposure

the amount of the substance encountered

Combustion

the chemical process of burning, rapid reaction of fuel with oxygen to release energy in form of light and heat

Respiration

the foods we eat are metabolized to produce carbon dioxide and water.

Shifting Baselines

the idea that what people expect as "normal" on our planet has changed over time, especially with regard to ecosystems

Atoms

the smallest unit of an element that can exist as a stable, independent entity

Molecule

two or more atoms held together by chemical bonds in a certain spatial arrangement


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