09-724 Environmental Chemistry
12 units, Carnegie Mellon University
Environmental pollutants are common consequences of human activities. These chemicals have a wide range of deleterious effects on the environment and people. This course will introduce students to a range of major environmental pollutants, with a particular focus on persistent organic pollutants. We will use chemical principles including thermodynamics, kinetics, photochemistry, organic reaction mechanisms, and structureactivity relationships to understand the environmental fate of major classes of pollutants. The transport of chemicals through the environment and their partitioning between air, water, soil, and people will be described. The major environmental reaction pathways oxidation, photolysis, hydrolysis, reduction, metabolism of common pollutants will be explored. This will provide students with the necessary knowledge to predict the chemical fate of environmental pollutants, and improve their understanding of the environmental impacts of their everyday chemical use and exposure. Specific topics include water quality, photochemical smog, organic aerosols, atmospheric chemistry and global climate change, toxicity of pesticides, and heterogeneous and multiphase atmospheric chemistry. This 12unit course is intended for graduate students that want to explore aspects of the course more deeply. This includes additional requirements including a final term paper and inclass presentation, and additional advanced questions on the homework assignments. Undergraduates should register for 09524, the 9unit version of the class, unless they obtain specific permission from the instructor to enroll in this class.
Prerequisites: 09-219 or 09-217
Courseweave needs JavaScript to show sections, workloads and planning tools.