Lesson 8 The Chemistry of Natural Waters

Chapter 9 is probably the hardest chapter in the Baird book. It represents an extension, rather than an application of the principles learned in general chemistry. For the serious student of the chemistry of the environment, it is a must. For the dilettante, it would probably be better to skip this chapter. Before beginning to read this chapter, I would advise carefully rereading the sections of your general chemistry book dealing with redox and acid-base chemistry.

The development of this subject material is, of necessity, mathematical in nature. The concepts are not advanced but the algebra is detailed and challenging. Most advanced treatments of environmental chemistry, assume one is familiar with this material. While many of the calculations for real world systems are done by computer models, it is very important to understand the underlying basic principles. The trick is to become familiar enough with the math to see beyond it, to develop an intuition about the effect of certain changes upon a system.

I append a more rigorous approach to the subject material of this chapter that we have used in the past for this course.