In March of 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska. An eighteen foot wide hole was ripped into the hull, and 10.9 million gallons of crude oil spilled into the ocean. In the following weeks, many things transpired. This paper will discuss the cleanup, the damage,…
The History of Aluminum use Aluminum is now one of the most widely used metals, but one of the hardest to refine due to it’s reactivity with other elements. Even as late as the turn of the century, Aluminum was considered very valuable and in turn expensive, even more expensive than gold. In some cultures,…
HYDROPONICS derives its name from the Greek HYDRO-PONOS meaning water/labor. Literally, “Hydroponics” means “Water Work.” There is no soil in a hydroponic garden. No organic matter is present so nourishment (Nutrient) is not available to the plants in the same was as it is in a soil garden. Instead, nutrients are added to the water. …
is element number 54 on the periodic table of the elements. It has a mass of roughly 131 atomic mass units. There are 77 neutrons and 54 protons in the nucleus of the atom. The symbol for xenon is Xe and it belongs to the family of elements called the noble gases. It is called…
Tin’s discoverer is unknown but one thing is known. Tin has been used and discovered by the ancients. Tin was an accidental discovery. Tin has been around for many years. Proof is in the fact that tin is mentioned in the old testament of the bible. Tin had a great effect on the world because…
William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) was born June 26, 1824 in Belfast, Ireland, and was part of a large family whose mother died when he was six. His father taught Kelvin and his brother’s mathematics to a level beyond that of university courses of the time. Kelvin was somewhat of a genius, and had his…
A Vitamin is any organic compound required by the body in small amounts for metabolism, to protect health, and for proper growth in children. Vitamins also assist in the formation of hormones, blood cells, the chemicals of the nervous-system, and genetic material. The various vitamins are not chemically related, and most differ in their physiological…
Antihistamines are drugs that block the action of histamine. Histamine, also known as histamine phosphate, an amine (beta-imidazolyl-ethylamine, ergamine, or ergotidime) that is a normal constituent of almost all animal body cells. Histamine is also found in small quantities in ergot and purified meat products and is produced synthetically for medicinal purposes. In the body,…
Sulfonamides, the chemical name for sulfa drugs were the first chemical compounds to provide safe and effective treatment to most common bacterial infections. Before the use of penicillin after the mid 1940’s, Sulfa drugs played a major role in antibacterial treatment which resulted in a sharp decrease in deaths due to such bacterial infections. In…
Acetylsalicylic acid, commonly known as aspirin is one of the most widely used analgesics in the world”. Used by Ancient Greeks and Native Americans it was used to reduce fever and pain and could also be used as an anti-inflammatory agent. It interferes with tissue contractions of the prostaglandin’s which are chemicals involved in the…
Carbon, an element discovered before history itself, is one of the most abundant elements in the universe. It can be found in the sun, the stars, comets, and the atmospheres of most planets. There are close to ten million known carbon compounds, many thousands of which are vital to the basis of life itself (WWW…
There are 92 naturally occurring elements; only 17 of them make up 99.5% of the earth’s crust (including oceans and atmosphere). In living things (plants, animals, people) the six most abundant elements are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur. The universe is dominated by the elements hydrogen (83%) and helium (16%) 1. The Crust…
The study of the growth, shape, and geometric characteristics of crystals is called crystallography. When the conditions are right, each chemical element and compound can crystallize in a definite and characteristic form. Thirty-two classes of crystals are theoretically possible, almost all common minerals fall into one of about twelve classes, and some classes have never…
It is atomic number 81. It has 81 protons and electrons and 123 neutrons. Thallium has a mass of 204.3833 atomic mass units. Its symbol is Tl. It resides in Group IIIA of the periodic table. That is the aluminum family. Thallium has a bluish color after exposure to the air. It is a very…
Atomic Number: 43 Atomic Symbol: Tc Atomic Weight: (97) Electron Configuration: -18-13-2 Element 43 was predicted on the basis of the periodic table, and was erroneously reported as having been discovered in 1925, at which time it was named masurium. The element was actually discovered by Perrier and Segrein Italy in 1937. It was found…
Silicon is the raw material most often used in integrated circuit (IC) fabrication. It is the second most abundant substance on the earth. It is extracted from rocks and common beach sand and put through an exhaustive purification process. In this form, silicon is the purist industrial substance that man produces, with impurities comprising less…
Robert Boyle is considered both the founder of modern chemistry and the greatest English scientist to live during the first thirty years of the existence of the Royal Society. He was not only a chemist and a physicist as we know him to be, but also an avid theologian, a philanthropist, an essayist, and a…
Quarks- any group of subatomic particles believed to be among the basic components if matter Quarks are believed to be the fundamental constituents of matter, and have no apparent structure. They are the particles that make up protons and neutrons, which make up the nucleus of atoms. Also, particles that interact by means of the…
Pyrite, also known as Fool’s Gold is the most common of the sulfide minerals. Pyrite is called Fool’s Gold because of it’s pale brass yellow color and glistening metallic luster, but it may be told from gold by it’s cubic, dodecahedral, and octahedral crystals and fine grain masses. Some interesting facts about pyrite are that…
Plutonium is a radioactive metallic element. Although it is occasionally found in nature, mostly all of our plutonium is produced artificially in a lab. The official chemical symbol for plutonium is Pu, coming from its first and third letters. Its atomic number is ninety-four. Plutonium is able to maintain its solid state until very high…
