Lead And The Environment

Below is a free term papers summary of the paper "Lead And The Environment." If you sign up, you can be reading the rest of this term papers in under two minutes. Registered users should login to view this term paper.

Term Paper Title	Lead And The Environment
# of Words	855
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.42

Lead and The Environment

Lead and The Environment

     Some materials are so commonplace that we take them for granted. One of
those materials is a grayish metal that has been with us for thousands of years.
That metal is lead, still one of the world's most useful substances, and one
that never ceases to find a role in human society.

     Lead has the atomic symbol of Pb (for plumbum, lead in Latin). The
atomic number for lead is 82 and the atomic mass is 207.19 AMU. It melts at
about 327.502 oC and boils at 1740 oC. Lead is a heavy, ductile, soft, gray
solid. It is soluble in nitric acid and insoluble in water. It is found in North,
Central and South America, Australia, Africa and Europe. In modern times, lead
has found a wide range of uses, and world demand for lead and its products has
steadily increased. Lead's usefulness stems from the metal's many desirable
properties: softness, high density, low melting point, ability to block
radiation, resistance to corrosion, readiness to form alloys and chemical
compounds, and ease of recycling. Its versatility, as well as its physical and
chemical properties, accounted for its extensive use. Lead can be rolled into
sheets which can be made into rods and pipes. It can also be molded into
containers and mixed with other metallic elements.

     Lead was used in ancient times for making coinage, art objects and water
pipes. One of the first known toxic substances, lead was used by the Romans for
lining aqueducts and in glazes on containers used for food and wine storage; and
it is suspected to have resulted in widespread lead poisoning. Members of the
famous Franklin Expedition to the Northwest Passage in the mid-1840s met a
similar fate, being poisoned from lead in solder, widely used at the time to
seal tins used to store foods. Until recently, one of the most significant uses
was an anti-knock additive in gasoline. In the 1970s and 1980s, steps were taken
to reduce the use of leaded gas. By 1990, these actions had virtually eliminated
the use of lead in gasoline. Lead is also one of the best and earliest examples
of recycling about 55 percent of the lead used in Canada comes from recycled
material.

     One particular category of toxic tort is injury caused by exposure to
lead-based paint. The hazards of lead-based paint have been known since the
early 1900s, when the use of lead in the manufacture of paint was banned in
Australia. The lead mining and lead pigment industries in the United States were
able, however, to...

This is not the end of the termpaper! Register below to see the complete version of this term paper.

Membership Plans	Credit Card	Check

1 month membership

3 month membership (You Save 50%)

6 month membership (You Save 67%)

Copyright © 2002-2007 Mid Term Papers. All rights reserved. This term papers website is used for research purposes only.
If you have forgotten your username or password, please click here.
If you like to cancel your account, please click here.

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22