Concepts from Wednesday Reading D.8- D.10

D.8- D. 10

In tonights reading, I mainly learned about alloys and renewable and nonrenewable resources. Alloys are solid solutions mixed with two or more different metallic elements. Examples include Brass, Bronze, Steel, Pewter, Mercury amalgams, 14 carat gold, and white gold. The Common Alloy Compositions and Uses table in the books lists these examples of alloys and their percent by mass of each element in the alloy. It also list each examples use in the world. Sustainability in chemistry refers to the practices and processes in our present day activities that preserve the ability of future generations to live and meet their resource needs on Earth. Renewable resources are resources that can eventually be regrown or replenished by natural processes. For example, both wood and water are renewable resources because wood grows from trees and if you plant a seed a tree will grow and a tree will regrow usually after being chopped and water is a renewable resource because it has a cycle of evaporation and going into the clouds and then back to the ocean therefore we have an endless amount of water because our water never disappears it just goes in a circle. This is what renewable resources are. They are resources that we can never loose because they are able to replenish themselves or never disappear in the first place. Nonrenewable resources are resources that cannot readily be replenished. For example, the Earth contains an infinite amount of petroleum (oil) but we still cannot replenish it because once we should oil or burn it, it is gone and not the same. Oil changes and cannot replenish itself which is why it is possible for one day the Earth to loose oil if we use all the oil in the Earth which would be a lot.