Chemical scientists play a key role in lowering air pollution (in unusual ways), along with understanding and monitoring it. In 2021, World Health Organization declares that air pollution has taken the lives of about 7 million people worldwide.
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, if present policies are followed, polluted air will be the greatest reason for shortened lifespans by the year 2050. We can save billions of people and enhance living standards by improving air quality.
Additionally, fresh air helps in the protection of the environment and the preservation of cultural heritage. Acid rain, which affects the environment and ruins buildings like the Taj Mahal and the Acropolis, is formed by the pollutants like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. It also damages life underwater and beneath the soil. Ground-level ozone; also has an impact on plants, reducing agricultural productivity.
Air pollution is a global problem since contaminants may be widespread, even across nations. However, engineers and scientists all across the world are still doing research on this problem, and we hope to support chemistry’s crucial role in monitoring and understanding air pollution and creating ways to reduce it.
How Chemistry Can Help
Air is a gaseous and particle combination that undergoes intricate chemical reactions taking place in the atmosphere to generate air pollutants e.g. ozone. Sulfur dioxide, for example, is discharged directly into the atmosphere.
Air pollutants can be in either state (solid, liquid, or gas) and can arise from both man-made and natural sources; the most significant source of air pollution these days are energy units, road transportation, industry, and domestic fuel combustion.
Understanding contaminants and their chemistry is necessary to decipher health impacts, regulate emissions, and create pollution-reduction technology. For example, chemists have developed a “master chemical mechanism” which defines the chemical processes that occur during the breakdown of low boiling point organic molecules at low atmospheric pressure.
It allows the policy-makers to “test” the efficiency of proposed regulations or laws. Despite this, researchers have also found that during heatwaves, plants were a substantial source of organic pollutants.
Air pollution monitoring
Accurate measurements of pollution are critical for assuring acquiescence with both national and global quality of air guidelines. Moreover, measurements assist us in understanding links between air pollution and health issues, such as the association between different types of a specific matter and cardiovascular disorders.
Combating air pollution
Land use planning, regulation, solutions using technology (such as car engine design), and the behavior of consumers are all used to combat air pollution. Chemistry is important in the development of technological solutions.
Chemists contribute to lower transportation emissions in a variety of ways, from generating low-sulfur cleaner fuels that enhance the efficiency of engines. They are also developing novel transportation technologies, like fuel cells for hydrogen vehicles and batteries for electric cars, and also systems to make fuels from sources of energy that are renewable rather than fossil fuels.
Fitting antipollution systems to the exhaust of vehicles is another approach to limiting pollutant discharge. Most gasoline engines contain three-way catalytic converters that eliminate carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and unoxidized hydrocarbons from the exhaust.
Carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons are oxidized by platinum or palladium catalysts to create carbon dioxide and water, whereas nitrogen oxides are reduced by rhodium catalysts to produce nitrogen and oxygen.
Absorbers, catalysts, and particle filters that can reduce pollution discharge are made and enhanced by chemists, manufacturing engineers, and technologists.
Even the clothing you and the buildings will be able to filter the air in the upcoming days. Using only oxygen and light, photo-catalytic clothing may degrade nitrogen oxides and unstable organic molecules.
The same technology is used in paint and cement, which allows buildings to purify the air around them.
The solution to Air Pollution
By taking specific precautions and actions, every issue or challenge may be overcome. Utilizing eco-friendly products, such as VOC-free goods, can help to lessen air pollution. The cornerstone to mitigating air pollution is to restrict the utilization of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas.
Our government should work to promote clean air initiatives and increase public understanding of the causes and effects of air pollution. Additionally, researchers are working to identify the most effective strategies and resources for lowering air pollution using specialized methodologies.
Growing trees is also a crucial strategy to lower air pollution. It reduces carbon dioxide, a significant pollutant, from the atmosphere. So, it is our responsibility to protect the environment by limiting pollution and growing trees.
The writer is a student of BS Chemistry at The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Pakistan.
