Chemistry in the Marketplace

552 Pages·35.007 MB·English

by  Ben Selinger, Russell Barrow.

Sixth Edition
Sixth Edition
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E
Chemicals are everywhere. Many are natural and safe, others synthetic and dangerous. Or is it the M
other way around? Walking through the supermarket, you might ask yourself: Should I be eating
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organic food? Is that anti-wrinkle cream a gimmick? Is it worth buying BPA-free plastics? S
T
This Sixth Edition of Chemistry in the Marketplace provides fresh explanations, fascinating facts CHEMISTRY IN
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and funny anecdotes about the serious science in the products we buy and the resources we use.
Y
It might even save you some money.

I
N THE
With chapters on the chemistry found in different parts of our home, in the backyard and in the
world around us, Ben Selinger and Russell Barrow explain how things work, where marketing
T MARKETPLACE
can be deceptive and what risks you should really be concerned about.
H
E
REVIEWS OF PREVIOUS EDITIONS
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‘Excellent and pioneering…it forced me to think, informed me greatly and made me laugh.’
New Scientist A
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‘Unique book which makes chemistry come alive.’ Dr A. J. Davies, South Australian College of
K
Advanced Education
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‘Instructive source of reference for the concerned consumer, high school and postgraduate T
chemistry students, and chemistry teachers and demonstrators at all levels.’ Chemistry in Australia P
L
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
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Ben Selinger AM is Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University. His extracurricular
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activities have included consumer protection, regulating Australia’s chemicals, and providing
features on science on talk-back radio and for the Canberra Times. He was awarded a Eureka
R B
Prize for Science Communication by the Australian Museum. U E
S N
S S
Russell Barrow is an Associate Professor in the Research School of Chemistry at the Australian E E
L L
National University. He researches the roles of chemicals in natural systems, including chemicals L I
N
B G
involved in ecological processes such as plant pollination and the chemistry of compounds from A E
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mushrooms that are used traditionally in Papua New Guinea. R
O A
W N
D
BEN SELINGER AND RUSSELL BARROW
ISBN 978 1 486 30332 8
9 781486 303328
Chemistry_in_the_Marketplace_cover _artwork.indd 1 7/03/2017 12:21 pm
Sixth edition
Chemistry in
the
marketplaCe
Ben Selinger and ruSSell Barrow
Chemistry_in_the_Marketplace_titlepage_2.indd 1 9/12/2016 1:06 am
This edition is dedicated to five grandchildren, Jasper, Hannah, Elke, David and
Flynn and their cohorts for whom life will depend even more on understanding
science and technology than has ours.
Source: Adam Selinger.
Sixth edition
Chemistry in
the
marketplaCe
Ben Selinger and ruSSell Barrow
Chemistry_in_the_Marketplace_titlepage_2.indd 2 9/12/2016 1:06 am
©Ben Selinger and Russell Barrow 2017
All rights reserved. Except under the conditions described in the Australian Copyright Act
1968 and subsequent amendments, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, duplicating or otherwise, without the prior permission of the
copyright owner. Contact CSIRO Publishing for all permission requests.
The moral rights of the author(s) have been asserted.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Selinger, Ben, 1939– author.
Chemistry in the marketplace / Ben Selinger and Russell Barrow.
Sixth edition.
9781486303328 (paperback)
9781486303335 (epdf)
9781486303342 (epub)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Chemistry.
Chemistry – Popular works.
Barrow, Russell, author.
Published by
CSIRO Publishing
Locked Bag 10
Clayton South VIC 3169
Australia
Telephone: [phone]
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.publish.csiro.au
Front cover (top to bottom): face scrub (Steve Cordory/Shutterstock); blue paint (rangizz/
Shutterstock); electric car (Nerthuz/Shutterstock); water bottle (Mariyana M/Shutterstock)
Set in ITC Slimbach 9.5/11.5
Edited by Peter Storer Editorial Services
Cover design by Andrew Weatherill
Typeset by Thomson Digital
Index by Bruce Gillespie
Printed in China by 1010 Printing International Ltd
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magazines and journals from Australia to a worldwide audience and conducts these
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to, the publisher or CSIRO. The copyright owner shall not be liable for technical or other
errors or omissions contained herein. The reader/user accepts all risks and responsibility
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Original print edition:
The paper this book is printed on is in accordance with the
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Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgements xi
About the authors xv
1 Molecular musings 1
2 Chemistry of health and risk 27
3 Chemistry of surfaces 43
4 Chemistry in the laundry 61
5 Chemistry in the kitchen 81
6 Chemistry in the dining room 109
7 Biochemistry of metabolism and sport 137
8 Chemistry of cosmetics 149
9 Chemistry in the medicine cabinet 177
10 Chemistry of plastics and glass 209
11 Chemistry of fibres, fabrics and other yarns 241
12 Chemistry in the garden 261
13 Chemistry of hardware and stationery 291
Contents v
14 Chemistry in the swimming pool 311
15 Chemistry at the beach 327
16 Biological effects of metals and metalloids 347
17 Chemistry in the energy sector 365
18 Chemistry of ionising radiation 395
19 Experiments 415
Appendix 1: Nomenclature in chemistry 433
Appendix 2: Reporting amounts of material (units) 447
Appendix 3: Prevalence of logarithmic scales 451
Appendix 4: How much is safe? 455
Appendix 5: Phase diagrams 459
Appendix 6: Metal foils 469
Appendix 7: Metal alloys 473
Appendix 8: Maillard reaction 479
Appendix 9: Refractive index 481
Appendix 10: Glass transition temperature (Tg) 487
Appendix 11: The entropy game 489
Glossary 499
Index 509
vi Chemistry in the marketplaCe
Preface
It was over three glasses of cold, artificially coloured, artificially foam-stabilised,
enzyme-clarified, preserved, gassed amber fluid in 1973 that Mal Rasmussen, Derry
Scott and I (Ben Selinger) came to the realisation that we ought to be teaching
consumers some real chemistry relevant to our lives, so that they could hope to
make some sense of the arguments that rage in the media. The course that we
developed accordingly ran under the auspices of the Australian National University
Centre for Continuing Education with the alliterative title ‘Chemical Consciousness
for Concerned Consumers’. The notes and title for that 1973–1975 course evolved
into a book. The first commercial edition of Chemistry in the Marketplace was
published by ANU Press and John Murrays (UK) in 1975.
The need for this type of reference is shown by the fact that in 1988 new national
guidelines came into effect for chemistry teaching in the UK that took into account
the approach used in Chemistry in the Marketplace. Across the Atlantic in the same
year, the American Chemical Society produced their own book for schools, with
the same philosophy, called Chemistry in the Community (ChemCom), under the
project management of Sylvia A. Ware. A tertiary version, Chemistry in Context:
Applying Chemistry to Society, followed in 1994.
The problem faced in the first few editions of Chemistry in the Marketplace
was that of obtaining any information at all ‘off the beaten track’. In the following
decades, both industry and government have become more open and user friendly.
(The set of earlier editions provide a nice social history of how the issues in the
marketplace have changed over 40 years. Don’t throw them out!) There has been
an international explosion in popular books dealing with chemistry for consumers,
and a tsunami on information on the world wide web. But it takes time and
experience to assess the glut, and separate the wheat from the chaff.
During a sabbatical in Europe in 1991, I toured with a lecture called ‘Chemistry
for tourists’. I was struck that what I wanted as a tourist in Europe was for someone
else to use their experience to sift through all the information about what to do and
see, and present me with a sample of what might be of most use and interest. I took
this approach for the later editions of Chemistry in the Marketplace – to be a tourist
guide to chemistry. We are taking you through a foreign country, pointing out and
explaining landmarks we hope will interest you, giving the cultural setting, telling
a few funny stories, helping you with the shopping, and explaining that the natives
(in the chemical industry) can often be reasonably friendly. We will also warn you
against salespeople who will try to strip your wallets with pseudoscience. Tour
Preface vii
guides work in a very difficult profession. When describing culture and interpreting
language, cultural differences continuously make life difficult. We know that in
this book the original language, chemistry, is not always captured in all its glory.
Forgive us.
In revising new editions of this book, my philosophy has always been to follow
the aphorism of the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, ‘Sentence first –
verdict afterwards’. That is, give me a reason for wanting to learn chemistry
and then I might deign to consider spending time and effort on it. Traditional
approaches tackle chemical concepts in a systematic manner and may follow on
with some illustrative examples. Chemistry in the Marketplace reverses the process
by starting with relevant consumer experiences and providing the associated
chemical concepts. This acknowledges the power of informal learning, as seen in
the way children learn a game such as chess or using a smart phone.
Chemistry in the Marketplace also draws on the philosophy of Richard Feynman
who said ‘the same equations have the same solutions’. (His was the inspiration
for my book, MacFourier, Oxford University Press, 1991.) We show how the same
chemical concepts keep on popping up in diverse consumer-interesting areas, often
disguised by different names. Recognising these not only makes explaining more
efficient, but also increases the incentive to make the effort to understand something
that has multiple applications. These concepts are given a succinct exposure in
Chapter 1 and are pointed out by cross-referencing in the individual chapters,
where the same concept may be discussed with a different slant. Thus, surfactants
are essential in the laundry and kitchen, important in cosmetics, and dominate
modern paints. Logarithmic scales have their own appendix (Appendix 3) because
they are relevant to so many facets of life and are touched on throughout the book.
So what does this book aim to achieve? One response is to stimulate curiosity
and develop a deeper commitment to learning. Learning chemistry properly is
hard, but so is sport, acting, music and writing literature … Start with fun and,
in many cases, enthusiasm and dedication will follow. Another aim is to explain
the less digestible basic sciences through everyday examples. For chemists,
consumer aspects make the subject more relevant. For consumers, gaining some
understanding for the chemistry deepens their appreciation of what they are using.
Chemistry in the Marketplace is not a textbook and follows no chemistry syllabus;
rather it is a reference for students, teachers and the general reader. It provides
material over a large spread of levels and caters for the cover-to-cover reader, as
well as for those who just pop-in. Skip as you feel comfortable.
The further reading lists at the end of each chapter suggest only a small opening
gambit. Stable URLs are likely to be more accessible than books, so we have
focussed on those. Most learned society journal publications require payment
for access, although a few offer a very limited amount of free material. Official
government, quasi-government (e.g. CSIRO, ABC) and university sites tend to be
free and reliable, but may not be regularly updated. Blogs are great fun, but can
be of questionable quality. A major skill need for the 21st century is the ability
to judge quality on the internet. Books like this one go through a drawn-out peer
review process and hawkeyed editing. You have made a good choice!
While many authors might write six books, this author has written the same
book six times. This Sixth Edition has been consolidated by directing the reader
to selected stable and reliable web references for further information. It is fully
updated throughout, with completely redrawn illustrations, new appendices
and new chapters on biochemistry (Chapter 7), the beach (Chapter 15) and the
viii Chemistry in the marketplaCe
biological effects of metals and metalloids (Chapter 16). It also contains a chapter
dedicated to experiments (Chapter 19) that illustrate concepts found within the
text. Some simple experiments are also included with the chapters. My writing has,
of course, been influenced through my training as a physical chemist. Luckily for
this edition, it is balanced by Dr Russell Barrow who is a chemical chemist.
Ben Selinger
Chemistry in the Marketplace was a book I (Russell Barrow) grew up with. As a
generation X’er, when I was at school and then in my early years of university,
the internet wasn’t there and this book was often my first stop when I needed to
know something about chemistry in a practical context. For example, it taught me
that swimming pools don’t have too much chlorine when they have that familiar
pool smell, but too little. It taught me that it is too little chlorine that makes your
eyes red, not too much! Now we have the internet, a lot of our questions can be
answered by going there. This newest edition of the book doesn’t try to replace the
internet. Instead we use it to complement the book. As already mentioned, many
of the references will direct you to websites. So the problem now isn’t finding the
information to answer a question but rather knowing what question to ask. This
book will start you down the path of asking questions. Hopefully you’ll find this
book whets your appetite and many more questions will result from reading it.
So how did I find myself involved with this book? As an academic in chemistry
at the Australian National University (ANU) my days are full of teaching and
research. I have been incredibly lucky to have been able to explore the world
around me, discovering molecules and their roles in nature. As a natural product
chemist, my current research looks at the molecules contained in mushrooms that
are used by indigenous communities in Papua New Guinea or tries to understand
the relationships that allow a plant to trick a male wasp into thinking it is a female
wasp, with this seduction achieving its goal of pollination. Chemistry really is
amazing! During my time at the ANU I also had the good fortune to meet Ben
Selinger. On many occasions, often over a cup of coffee, I would listen with interest
as he would talk about his latest article in the science section of The Canberra
Times (our daily newspaper here in the ACT) or in a popular magazine. Finding a
sympathetic ear, I would talk about the way I liked to introduce tangents into my
lectures by bringing in aspects of chemistry that were relevant to the real world.
I joked about giving a lecture course called ‘The Chemistry of Tangents’. When I
was asked to be involved with writing this edition, it came with the warning from
Ben that it was a lot of work and would take a lot of time. I was to find out he
lied. It took a tonne of work and all of my time! I have written parts of this book
in five continents, from the comfort of my desk at home in Canberra to admiring
the views of the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru. It has been an exhausting
and rewarding experience that I hope you, the reader, find a useful addition to your
library.
Russell Barrow
Preface ix