RADIOACTIVITY

ATMOSPHERIC AEROSOLS
ACID RAIN
Radioactivity
Although most atomic nuclei are stable indefinitely, some are not.
The unstable, or radioactive, nuclei spontaneously decompose by emitting a small particle that
is very fast moving and therefore carries with it a great deal of energy.
In some types of nuclear decomposition processes, atoms are converted from those of one
element to those of another as a consequence of this emission.
Very heavy elements are particularly prone to this type of decomposition, which occurs by the
emission of a small particle.
The nuclei produced by emission of the particle may or may not themselves be radioactive.
• Although alpha and beta particles are energetic, they cannot travel far within the human body, since they lose more and more of
their energy—and consequently slow down—as they collide with more and more atoms.
• Alpha particles can travel only a few thousandths of a centimeter within the body, so they are not penetrating. This is true because
they are relatively massive.
• If an particle is emitted outside the body, it will usually be absorbed in the air or by the layer of dead skin, so it will do you no
harm. However, inhaled or ingested radioactive atoms can cause serious internal damage when they emit particles.
• In their interaction with matter, alpha particles are highly damaging—the most highly damaging of all particles— since they can
knock atoms out of molecules or ions out of crystal sites. If the molecules affected are DNA or its associated enzymes, cell death
can result. A more serious consequence for the individual can be the creation of mutations that could lead to cancer.
• Beta particles move much faster than particles since they are much lighter and can travel about 1 m in air or about 3 cm in water or
biological tissue before losing their excess energy. Like particles, they can cause considerable damage to cells if they are emitted
from particles that have been inhaled or ingested and the radioactive nucleus is consequently close to the cell when it decays.
• Gamma rays easily pass through concrete walls—and our skin. A few centimeters of lead are required to shield us from rays.
Gamma particles are the most penetrating and therefore the most damaging of the three, traveling a few dozen centimeters into our
bodies or even right through them. They are generally the most dangerous type of radioactivity, since they can penetrate matter
efficiently and do not have to be inhaled or ingested.
• The ions produced by radiation when its energy is transferred to molecules are free radicals;
hence they are highly reactive. For example, a water molecule can be ionized by an , , or ray
or by an X-ray.
• The resulting H2O free-radical ion subsequently dissociates into a hydrogen ion and the
hydroxyl free radical, OH

• If the affected water molecule is contained in a cell, the hydroxyl radical can engage in
harmful reactions with biological molecules in the cell, such as DNA and proteins.
Quantifying the amount of radiation energy absorbed

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Radon from Uranium 238 decay sequence.

Undergoes. Of particular interest is the portion of the 14-step sequence of 238U radioactive
decay that involves radon, since this element is the only one, other than the helium produced
from the particles, that is gaseous and therefore is mobile.
The immediate precursor of the radon is radium-226, which has a half-life of 1600 years and decays by emission
of an alpha particle:
• Radiation from the Daughters of Radon

• Radon, the heaviest member of the noble gas group, is chemically inert under ambient
conditions and remains a monatomic gas.
• The danger arises instead from the radioactivity of the next three elements in the
disintegration sequence of radon—namely, polonium, lead, and bismuth.
• These descendants are termed daughters of radon, which in turn is called the parent element.
In macroscopic amounts, these particular daughter elements are solids, and when formed in
the air from radon they all quickly adhere to dust particles. Some dust particles adhere to
lung surfaces when inhaled, emit energetic alpha particles that can cause radiation damage to
the bronchial cells near which the dust particles reside. This damage can eventually lead to
lung cancer.
 Radon decay to 210Pb formation takes less than a week on average. In contrast, disintegration of 210Pb to 210Bi
has a half-life of 22 years, and, in fact, most of the lead will have been cleared from the body before this process
occurs.

The environmental radon problem has received the greatest attention in the United States, where there are currently
programs to test the air in the basements of a large number of homes for significantly elevated levels of the gas.
Once radon is identified, the owners can then alter the air circulation patterns to reduce radon levels in living areas,
thereby reducing the additional risk of contracting lung cancer.

Causes of radioactive pollution

• Nuclear Accidents From Nuclear Energy Generation Plants
• The Use of Nuclear Weapons as Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)
• Use of Radioisotopes
• Mining
• Spillage of Radioactive Chemicals
• Nuclear Waste Handling and Disposal
 Assignments

 Suggest different solutions to Radioactive Pollution.

 What is global sulfur cycle?
 Report control technologies for sulfur oxides in
atmosphere?
Submission date: 9-11-21
Atmospheric aerosols
Acid rain
One of the most serious environmental problems facing many regions of the world is acid rain. This generic term covers
a variety of phenomena, including acid fog and acid snow, all of which correspond to atmospheric precipitation of
substantial acidity.

Natural and Anthropogenic Acid Rain

It refers to precipitation that is significantly more acidic than “natural” (i.e., unpolluted)
rain, which itself is often mildly acidic due to the presence in it of dissolved atmospheric
carbon dioxide, which forms carbonic acid, H2CO3.
• The two predominant acids in acid rain are sulfuric acid, H2SO4, and nitric acid, HNO3,
both of which are strong acids.
• Generally speaking, acid rain is precipitated far downwind from the source of the
corresponding primary pollutants, namely sulfur dioxide, SO2, and nitric oxide, NO. The
strong acids are created during the transport of the air mass that contains

The Acids and Acidity of Acid Rain

Acid rain has a variety of ecologically damaging consequences, and the presence of acid particles in air
may also have direct effects on human health.
However, the effects of acid rain on soil vary dramatically from region to region.
• In addition to the acids delivered to ground level during precipitation, a comparable amount is
deposited on the Earth’s surface by means of dry deposition, the process by which
nonaqueous chemicals are deposited onto solid and liquid surfaces at ground level when air
containing them passes over the surfaces. Much of the original SO2 gas is not oxidized in the
air but rather is removed by dry deposition from air before reaction can occur: oxidation and
conversion to sulfuric acid occurs after deposition.

Neutralization of Acid Rain by Soil

• The extent to which acid precipitation affects biological life in a given area depends strongly
upon the composition of the soil and bedrock in that area.
• If the bedrock is limestone or chalk, the acid can be efficiently neutralized (“buffered”), since
these rocks are composed of calcium carbonate,CaCO3, which acts as a base and reacts with
acid, producing bicarbonate ion, HCO3 as an intermediate:
that is present. In contrast, areas strongly affected by acid rain are those having granite or quartz bedrock, since the soil
there has little capacity to neutralize the acid.
• depends on calcium can be threatened by the subsequent low levels of the element.

Neutralization of Acid Rain by Anthropogenic Actions

In a few cases, attempts have been made to neutralize the acidity by
Environmental Effects of Acid Rain
• Acidification reduces the ability of some plants to grow, including those in fresh-water
systems. Because of the decrease in this productivity in lakes and streams that feed them, the
amount of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in the surface water has declined. The DOC
contains molecules that absorb some of the ultraviolet from sunlight; thus, a decline in DOC
levels has allowed more penetration of UV light into the lower layers of the lake.
• In addition, global warming has resulted in the drying up of some streams that supplied
DOC to lakes. Furthermore, stratospheric ozone depletion has also allowed more UV to
reach the Earth’s surface, including lakes, in the first place. Thus fresh-water lakes have
suffered a “triple whammy” from global environment problems
 Release of Aluminum into Water Bodies by Acid Rain
• Acidified lakes characteristically have elevated concentrations of dissolved aluminum ion, Al3 and
it is now known that many of the biological effects of acid rain are due to increased levels of
aluminum ion dissolved in water rather than to the hydrogen ion itself.
• Aluminum ions are leached from rocks in contact with acidified water by reaction with the
hydrogen ions; under normal, near-neutral pH conditions, the aluminum is immobilized in the rocks
by their insolubility.

• Scientists believe that both the acidity itself and the high concentrations of aluminum together are
responsible for the devastating decreases in fish populations that have been observed in many
acidified water systems.
• The stratospheric ozone
• The ozone hole
• CFC’s
• Ozone protection
• Biological consequences of ozone depletion
Other Chlorine-Containing, Ozone-Depleting Substances
A compound that lacks a tropospheric sink is CCl4, which
also is photochemically decomposed in the stratosphere,
producing chlorine atoms. It is used as a solvent and as an
intermediate in the manufacture of several important
CFCs. It has long atmospheric lifetime (26 years).
Methyl chloroform, CH3—CCl3, or 1,1,1 trichloroethane,
used in metal cleaning, half of it is removed from the
troposphere by reaction with the hydroxyl radical, the
remainder survives long enough to migrate to the
CFCs replacements
• The compounds being implemented as the direct replacements for CFCs all contain
hydrogen atoms bonded to carbon.
• A group of compounds containing hydrogen, chlorine, fluorine, and carbon called HCFCs,
hydrochlorofluorocarbons were introduced to replace CFCs.
• The most important example was CHF2Cl, the gas called HCFC-22 (or just CFC-22).
• It was employed in modern domestic air conditioners and in some refrigerators and freezers, and
found some use in blowing foams such as those used in food containers.

Products that are entirely free of chlorine, and that therefore pose no hazard to stratospheric
ozone, are the ultimate replacements for CFCs and HCFCs.

Hydrofluorocarbons, HFCs, substances that contain hydrogen, fluorine, and carbon, are the main
long-term replacements for CFCs and HCFCs.

The compound CH2FCF3, called HFC-134a, has an atmospheric lifetime

of several decades before finally succumbing to OH attack.

HFC-134a is now used as the working fluid in new refrigerators and automobile air conditioners
• But degradation pathway for some HFCs, and for several HCFCs as well, produces
trifluoroacetic acid, TFA, CF3-COOH, as an intermediate, athreat to aquatic life.
• HFCs contribute to global warming by enhancing the greenhouse effect.

Halons
• chemicals are bromine-containing, hydrogen-free substances such as CF3Br and CF2BrCl.
• Because they have no tropospheric sinks, they eventually rise to the stratosphere. There they
are photochemically decomposed, with the release of atomic bromine and chlorine thus
contributing towards ozone destruction.
Greenhouse effect mechanism
Major green house gases
Global warming
Control measures and global impact
 The Earth’s Energy Source
• The Earth’s surface and atmosphere are kept warm almost exclusively by energy from the Sun, which radiates energy
as light of many types. In its radiating characteristics, the Sun behaves much like a blackbody, i.e., an object that is
100% efficient in emitting and in absorbing light. The wavelength, peak, in micrometers, at which the maximum
emission of energy occurs by a radiating blackbody decreases inversely with increasing Kelvin temperature T
according to the relationship

• Of the total incoming sunlight of all wavelengths that impinges upon the Earth, about 50% is absorbed at its surface
by water bodies, soil, vegetation, buildings, etc. A further 20% of the incoming light is absorbed by water droplets in
air (mainly in the form of clouds) and by molecular gases.
• The UV component by stratospheric ozone, O3, and diatomic oxygen, O2, and the IR by carbon dioxide, CO2, and
especially by water vapor.
• A small amount of sunlight is absorbed by suspended particulates of black soot.
• The remaining 30% of incoming sunlight is reflected back into space by clouds, suspended particles, ice,
snow, sand, and other reflecting bodies, without being absorbed.
• The fraction of sunlight reflected back into space by an object is called its albedo, which therefore is about
0.30 for the Earth overall.
• Clouds are good reflectors, with albedos ranging from 0.4 to 0.8.
• Snow and ice are also highly reflecting surfaces for visible light (high albedos), whereas bare soil and
bodies of water are poor reflectors (low albedos).
• Thus the melting of sea ice in polar regions to produce open water greatly increases the fraction of sunlight
absorbed there and decreases the Earth’s overall albedo.
• Planting trees in snow-covered forests reduces the albedo of the surface and may actually contributed to
global warming.
Earth’s Energy Emissions and the Greenhouse Effect
• Like any warm body, the Earth emits energy; indeed, the amount of energy that the planet absorbs and the
amount that it releases into space must be equal over the long term if its temperature is to remain level.
• The emitted energy is neither visible nor UV light, because the Earth is not hot enough to emit light in
these regions.
• Since the temperature of the Earth’s surface is approximately 300 K, then according to the equation above,
if the Earth acted like a blackbody, its wavelength of maximum emission would be about 10 μm.
• Infrared light is emitted both at the Earth’s surface and by its atmosphere, though in different amounts at
different altitudes since the emission rate is very temperature sensitive: in general, the warmer a body, the
more energy it emits per second. The rate of release of energy as light by a
• The phenomenon of interception of outgoing IR by atmospheric constituents and its dissipation as heat
to increase the temperature of the atmosphere is called the greenhouse effect.
• The atmospheric gases that in the past have produced most of the greenhouse warming are water vapor
(responsible for about two-thirds of the effect) and carbon dioxide (responsible for about one-quarter).
Simple model of green house phenomenon
Consider the temperature of an Earth that had no greenhouse gases in its air but was balanced with respect
to incoming and outgoing energy is calculated to be -18°C, or 255 K. Since, according to the equation
above, the rate of energy emission from such a planet would be k (255)4 it follows that the rate of energy
input from the Sun, whether or not the Earth’s atmosphere contains greenhouse gases, is also k (255)4.
Overall, the real Earth acts as if about 60% of the energy it emits as infrared light is eventually transmitted
into space, the remainder being the fraction that is not only absorbed by greenhouse gases, but also
reradiated downward and further heats the surface and atmosphere. Thus the rate at which the Earth loses
energy to space as IR is not simply kT4 but rather 0.6 kT4.
Energy absorption by green house gases
Light is most likely to be absorbed by a molecule when its
frequency almost exactly matches the frequency of an
internal motion within the molecule.

For frequencies in the infrared region, the relevant

internal motions are the vibrations of the molecule’s
atoms relative to each other.
Types of Molecular Vibrations

The simplest vibrational motion in a molecule is a

bond-stretching vibration, and second one is angle
bending vibration.
 Major green house gases
• Carbon Dioxide: Absorption of Infrared Light
• The carbon dioxide molecules that are now present in air collectively
• absorb about half of the outgoing thermal infrared light having wavelengths in the 14–16-
μm region, together with a sizable portion of that in the 12–14- and 16–18-μm regions.
• It is because of CO2’s absorption that in Figure 5-7
• the black curve, which represents the amount of IR
• light that actually escapesfrom our atmosphere,
• falls so steeply around 15 μm.
Increasing concentration of CO2 to atmosphere
• Much of the considerable increase in anthropogenic contributions to the increase in carbon
dioxide concentration in air is due to the combustion of fossil fuels—chiefly coal, oil, and
natural gas.
• A significant amount of carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere when forests are cleared
and the wood burned in order to provide land for agricultural use.
Water Vapor: Its Infrared Absorption
• In fact, water is the most important greenhouse gas in the Earth’s atmosphere, in the sense
that it produces more greenhouse warming than does any other gas, although on a per
molecule basis it is a less efficient IR absorber than is CO2.
Water molecules, always abundant in air, absorb thermal IR light through their H-O-H bending
vibration; the peak in the spectrum for this absorption occurs at about 6.3 μm. As a
consequence, almost all the relatively small amount of outgoing IR in the 5.5–7.5-μm region is
intercepted by water vapor .
Water in the form of liquid droplets in clouds also absorbs thermal IR
• .
• Methane: Absorption and Sinks
• After carbon dioxide and water, methane, CH4, is the next most important greenhouse gas. A
methane molecule contains four C!H bonds and is
• tetrahedral. Although C!H bond-stretching vibrations occur well outside
• the thermal IR region, H!C!H bond-angle-bending vibrations absorb at
• 7.7 m, near the edge of the thermal IR window; consequently atmospheric methane absorbs IR
in this region
• Methane: Absorption and Sinks
• After carbon dioxide and water, methane, CH4, is the next most important greenhouse gas. A
methane molecule contains four C-H bonds and is tetrahedral. Although C-H bond-
stretching vibrations occur well outside the thermal IR region,
• H-C-H bond-angle-bending vibrations absorb at 7.7 μm, near the edge of the thermal IR
window; consequently atmospheric methane absorbs IR in this region.
• Per molecule, increasing the amount of methane in air causes a much larger warming effect
than does adding more carbon dioxide, since each CH4 molecule is much more likely to
absorb a thermal IR photon that passes through it than does a CO2 molecule.
• About 70% of current methane emissions are anthropogenic in origin and originate from
several different source types, including energy production, agriculture, and waste disposal.
Most of the natural sources involve plant decay, as do some of the anthropogenic emissions.
Nitrous oxide
• Another significant greenhouse trace gas is nitrous oxide, N2O, “laughing gas,” the molecular
structure of which is linear NNO rather than the more symmetric NON. Its bending vibration
absorbs IR light in a band at 8.6 μm, i.e., within the window region, and in addition, one of its
bond-stretching
• vibrations is centered at 7.8 μm, on the shoulder of the window and at the same wavelength as
one of the absorptions for methane.
• Per molecule released, N2O is 206 times as effective as CO2 in causing an immediate increase
in global warming, and about 114 times as effective when averaged over a century. Its
atmospheric lifetime is about 120 years.
Global Warming
• In general, air temperatures over land areas have experienced a greater increase than those
over the seas.
• The Arctic region has warmed most of all, with the consequence that its sea ice is
disappearing.
• Precipitation has increased in most areas, but decreased in others.
• Winters have become shorter, by about 11 days. In the Northern Hemisphere.
• Warming water is killing much of the coral in ocean reefs and threatening sea life.
• Mosquito-borne diseases have reached higher altitudes.
Solutions
• SRM: Using Metal Reflectors in Space
• SRM by Increasing Sulfate Aerosols in the Stratosphere.
• Burning less fossil fuels