Using resources

• How humans use the earth's resources

  • Provide warmth
  • Provide shelter
  • Provide food
  • Provide transport
• Modern agriculture


  Allows us to grow enough cotton to meet the needs of the world
• Resources used for fuel

  • Biofuels such as wood chips
• Chemistry


  Has replaced natural resources with synthetic alternatives
• Synthetic alternative to natural rubber

  • Produced using crude oil
• Finite resources


  Cannot be replaced as quickly as they are being used
• Finite resources


  • Fossil fuels
  • Metals
• Renewable resources


  Can be replaced as quickly as they are used
• Renewable resources


  • Wood
• Sustainable human activities


  Meet our needs without preventing future generations from meeting their needs
• Chemistry's role in using resources

  • Artificial fertilizers allow more food growth
  • Provides safe drinking water
  • Processes like phyto mining and bio leaching help extract metals more efficiently
• Potable water


  Water that is safe to drink
• Pure water


  Water that contains no dissolved substances at all
• Drinking water must have sufficiently low levels of dissolved salts such as sodium chloride and low levels of microbes such as bacteria
• Producing potable water from fresh water

  1. Use a good source of fresh water (e.g. river)

  2. Pass the water through filter beds to remove material such as leaves and suspended particles

  3. Sterilize the water to kill microbes (e.g. using chlorine, ozone or ultraviolet light)
• Producing potable water from salty water

  1. Use desalination to reduce the levels of dissolved minerals to an acceptable level (e.g. distillation or reverse osmosis)

  2. Both distillation and reverse osmosis require large amounts of energy, making them expensive
• In the UK, rain water provides most of the potable water, which collects in aquifers, lakes, rivers and reservoirs
• In many places, fresh water is scarce, so the only available water may be too salty to drink, such as seawater
• Desalination is required to produce potable water from seawater or other salty water sources