ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of environmental chemistry and describes how it relates to industrial ecology. Environmental chemistry is organized into four major categories: aquatic chemistry, atmospheric chemistry, geospheric chemistry, and the chemistry of life. Environmental chemistry must be considered in the extraction of materials from the geosphere and other environmental spheres to provide the materials required by industrial systems in a manner consistent with minimum environmental impact. Although water is part of all environmental spheres, it is convenient to regard portions of the environment as constituting the hydrosphere. Water circulates throughout the hydrosphere in one of nature's great cycles, the hydrologic cycle. Complexation, chelation, and organometallic compound formation have strong effects upon metals in the environment. The proper design of industrial ecosystems minimizes the release of water pollutants. Municipal wastewater may be subjected to primary, secondary, or advanced water treatment. Oxidation-reduction reactions in water involve the transfer of electrons between chemical species, usually through the action of bacteria.
