C14 - Earth's resources Flashcards
(57 cards)
1
Q
What do we use the Earth’s resources for? (4)
A
- Warmth
- shelter
- food
- transport
2
Q
What do natural resources provide?
A
- Food
- Timber
- Clothing
- fuels
3
Q
What are finite resources used for?
A
Oceans and atmosphere processed to provide energy and materials
4
Q
What is sustainable development?
A
- Development that meets the need of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs
5
Q
What are examples of natural products that are replaced by agricultural and synthetic products?
A
- Animal manure for fertiliser replaced by synthetic fertilisers made through Haber process which uses nitrogen from air
6
Q
What are finite resources?
A
- Resources that are used up quicker than they can be replaced, they will run out
7
Q
What are renewable resources?
A
Resources that will not be used up or run out
8
Q
What is potable water?
A
Water that is safe to drink
9
Q
Why is potable water not pure?
A
Contains dissolved substances - salts and microbes
10
Q
What does the method potable water is made depend on?
A
Available supplies of water
11
Q
How is potable water made in the UK?
A
- Rain provides water with low levels of dissolved substances
- collects in the ground and in lakes
- The water is filtered and sterilised
12
Q
What can be used to sterilise water?
A
- Chlorine
- Ozone
- Ultraviolet light
13
Q
What method is used to make potable water if fresh water is limited?
A
Desalination using distillation or reverse osmosis
14
Q
What is the problem of desalination?
A
Needs large amounts of energy
15
Q
What is the treatment of waste and groundwater to produce potable water?
A
- Made potable by filtration through soil and rock layers
- chlorination to kill harmful microbes
16
Q
What is the treatment of salty water to produce potable water?
A
- Can be made potable by desalination
- Reverse osmosis or distillation
17
Q
What is the process to produce potable water in the UK? (2)
A
- Passing the water through filter beds to remove insoluble particles
- Sterilising the water to kill microbes(chlorine, ozone and ultraviolet light)
18
Q
What is the process of desalination through distillation?(3)
A
- Sea water is heated until it boils
- Salt remains in the liquid, steam is pure water
- Steam cooled and condensed to make potable water
19
Q
What is the issue of distillation?
A
- Can be difficult to dispose of the wastewater in a sustainable way which does not harm marine ecosystems
20
Q
What is the process of desalination through reverse osmosis?(2)
A
- Water put under high pressure and passed through a membrane with tiny spores
- Pores allow water molecules through but prevent most ions
21
Q
What is the issue of reverse osmosis?
A
- Requires expensive membranes and produces a large volume of wastewater - its efficiency is often quite low
22
Q
RP8 - Water purification - obtaining potable water
A
- Pour a sample of water into a conical flask
- Heat the water until it boils
- The water will evaporate at 100 degrees and turn to steam
- The water vapour will condense in the condenser and collect in the conical flask - distilled potable water
22
Q
RP8 - Identify the mass of salt in a solution
A
- Add evaporating dish to a balance and record the mass
- Measure the volume required of the test solution and add this to the evaporating dish
- Use a bunsen burner to evaporate away all of the water
- Record the mass of the evaporating dish. Difference in mass is the mass of the salt in the solution
23
Q
RP8 - What is distillation?
A
A separation technique which involves the evaporation and condensation of the solution
24
RP8 - How can we test for pH?
Use a pH probe, litmus or universal indicator
25
How can litmus be used to test if a substance is an acid, alkali or neutral?
- Use blue and red litmus paper.
- An acid will turn blue litmus red and red litmus will remain red.
- An alkali will turn red litmus blue and blue litmus will remain blue.
- If the solution is neutral there will be no colour change for either red or blue litmus
26
How can universal indicator be used to identify the pH of a solution?
Add universal indicator, observe the colour change and match this to the chart to identify the pH
27
How can we tell if water is pure?
- Boil the water
- if water boils at 100 then the water is pure
28
What is the boiling point of pure water?
100
29
What apparatus would be suitable for measuring volumes of water?
- Measuring cylinder,
- burette or pipette
30
How can you check that all water has evaporated from a solution?
- Weigh the substance in the container
- Heat it
- Reweigh the container and if mass is the same all the water has evaporated
31
Describe a method to analyse 3 samples of water from different sources for pH and the presence of dissolved solids
1. Dip pH probe and record the pH reading
2. Weigh an evaporating dish and add 25cm of the solution
3. Evaporate all the water and reweigh the evaporating dish
4. Difference in mass is the mass of dissolved substances in each solution
5. Changing the sample of water and keep the volume of each sample the same
32
What produces large amounts of wastewater?
Urban lifestyles and industrial processes
33
What needs to be removed from wastewater?
Removal of organic matter and harmful microbes
34
What may need to be removed from industrial wastewater?
Removal of organic matter and harmful chemicals
35
What happens during sewage treatment?
1. Screening and grit removal
2. Sedimentation to produce sewage sludge and effluent
3. Anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge
4. Aerobic biological treatment of effluent
36
What are ways of extracting copper from low grade ores?
Bioleaching and phytomining
37
What do phytomining and bioleaching both avoid?
Digging, moving and disposing large amounts of rock
38
What happens during phytomining?
- Plants are used to absorb metal compounds.
- The plants are harvested and then burned to produce an ash which contain copper compounds
39
What are the 3 advantages of phytomining?
1. Reduces the need to obtain a new ore by mining, conserves limited supplies of high-grade ores
2. Reduces the amount of rock waste that must be disposed of after traditional mining
40
What happens during bioleaching?
Uses bacteria to produce leachate solutions that contain metal compounds
41
What are the advantages of bioleaching?
- Does not need high temperatures
- but it produces toxic substances like sulfuric acid which damage the environment
42
How can the copper compounds obtained through bioleaching and phytomining be processed?
The metal compound solutions are processed using scrap iron or electrolysis to displace the copper
43
Why are life cycle assessments carried out?
To assess the environmental impact of a product
44
What are the stages in life cycle assessments?
1. Extracting and processing the raw material
2. Manufacturing and packaging
3. Use and operation during its lifetime
4. Disposal at the end of its useful life including transport and distribution
45
What is easily quantified in a life cycle assessment?
Use of water resources and production of some waste
46
What is difficult to quantify in a life cycle assessment?
Pollutant effects
47
How can our use of resources to make glass be reduced?(2)
- Bottles can be reused
- Glass can be crushed and melted to make different glass products
48
How can our consumption of metals be reduced?
It can be recycled by melting and recasting or reforming into different products
49
What does the amount of separation required for recycling depend on?
The material and the properties required of the final product
50
Give an example of reducing consumption of metals
Some scrap steel can be added to iron from a blast furnace to reduce the amount of iron that needs to be extracted from iron ore
51
Explain and justify the steps to treat water from reservoirs
1. Reservoir water is first filtered - removes the solids such as small insoluble particles
2. Water would then have a chemical like chlorine added to it - to sterilise the water and reduce the number of microbes in it
52
Explain when seawater is used as a source of water for making potable water
- Used when there is not a sufficient supply of groundwater available
- This is because to make seawater safe you would need to desalinate the water by reverse osmosis or distillation which are both expensive as they require a lot of energy
53
Describe how sewage is treated(5)
1. Screening - sewerage passes through a metal grid to remove large debris and grit
2. Then left for sedimentation to occur - heavier substances sink to the bottom and form a layer of sludge while the liquid layer above is the effluent
3. Sludge piped away and broken down by microbes anaerobically
4. Effluent is broken down aerobically in another tank by microbes
5. Water is then sterilised to kill any pathogens
54
Describe how copper is made using phytomining(4)
1. Plants grown on land containing low grade copper ores
2. Once plants are grown the plants are harvested and burned to make ash
3. Ash is collected and added to an acid for it to dissolve and form copper solution
4. The solution undergoes electrolysis to extract the copper
55
Explain why biological methods are being used to extract copper(2)
- Copper is becoming scarce and using biological methods helps us to extract copper from low grade ores
- Biological methods means we do not have to use mining - avoids having to move and dispose of lots of rock
56
Explain how copper can be extracted from a copper solution using scrap iron
- Iron is more reactive than copper
- Iron will displace the copper in the solution so copper ions will be reduced and copper will form
