Archive for the ‘Canada’ Category

Report – CHEM120 – Determination of Water Hardness using EDTA

CHEMESTRY 120-02                                                   2009-11-17
DETERMINATION OF WATER HARDNESS USING E.D.T.A.

Stefan Martensson C0347318
Lab Partner: Danielle

Procedure: Please refer to handout ‘Experiment #7’ and page 35-38, Chemistry 120 Lab Manual, 2009 Edition, Camosun College. Plus additional handout: Report and Calculation Guide.

Theory:
Hard water is water that has high mineral content (mainly calcium and magnesium ions). Hard water minerals primarily consist of calcium (Ca2+), and magnesium (Mg2+) cations, and sometimes other dissolved compounds such as bicarbonates and sulfates. Calcium usually enters the water as either calcium carbonate (CaCO3), in the form of limestone and chalk, or calcium sulfate (CaSO4), in the form of other mineral deposits. Hardness in water can cause water to form scales and a resistance to soap. It can also be defined as water that doesn’t produce lather with soap solutions, but produces white precipitate (scum) (Wikipedia, 2009). Read the rest of this entry »

Lease Signed!… Stefan and Cath are going luxurious!!

Greetings Friends!

Yesterday we signed the contract to officially be living together. It’s a marvelous place, luxurious one could even say!

I have stolen a few pics from the Internet to show you what it looks like.

Read the rest of this entry »

Report – ENVR210 – Midterm

Q1. a) (I) Define, then (II) describe how density (sigma-t) in seawater is used to determine water structure and (III) what factors (processes) increase/decrease sigma-t. [5 mks] Read the rest of this entry »

Report – ENVR206B – Alternative Use – Another Glimps from Sweden

BIOWASTE – ALTERNATIVE USE ANOTHER GLIMPS FROM SWEDEN

Stefan Martensson C0347318                                                              2009-11-03

Background Info:
I have grown to understand that Sweden is in the forefront of the environmental research and its implementation in the real world.

My home town, Helsingborg, was awarded ‘The Most Environmental Municipality in Sweden” this year (out of 290 municipalities). Some of the reasons to the award were: Read the rest of this entry »

Report – ENVR206B – District Heating

SWEDEN – Independent from coal and oil in heating its buildings.

What is District Heating? District heating – as the name implies comes from a central plant which can use advanced methods to run on many different fuels to heat household, schools, industries and other premises. (http://www.svenskfjarrvarme.se). Read the rest of this entry »

Report – CHEM120 – Colorimetric Determination of Iron in a Vitamin Tablet using 1,10-Phenanthroline.

CHEMISTRY 120-02                                                                               2009-10-19
Colorimetric Determination of Iron in a
Vitamin Tablet using 1,10-Phenanthroline.

Stefan Martensson C0347318

Partner: Christine Meyer

Theory: To be able to measure the quantity of iron in the tablet we need to firstly assure that all the iron in the solution is in the of Fe2+ and not in Fe3+ due to the ‘blindness’ of this experiment for that ion. This is accomplished by adding Hydroquinone as a reducing agent to ensure that all iron in the solution will be in form of Fe2+.

Furthermore, to be able to view the absorption of the iron we need to enhance its very faint green colour with 1,10-Phenanthroline so it is easier to measure. Unfortunately, 1,10-Phenanthroline is only stable in the pH range of 2 to 9, and to make it stable we need to use Sodium citrate to create a buffered solution with a pH of around 3.5. Read the rest of this entry »

Update Camosun, Camping, Canada…

Greetings friends,

Well, what to say, all the issues from my previous posts have been solved more or less and the last few weeks has been more about what I came here for, studying.

Most of the instructors are very talented and bring plenty of life-experience with them into the classrooms and it’s interesting to listen to. I think we are closing in on the half-way mark of the first semester and I guess I am doing ok. I was hoping to be doing a bit better, but being away from the academic world now for almost eight years tends to make you forget things you haven’t used for a while.

Read the rest of this entry »

Letter to the Mayor of Victoria

Dear Mayor Dean Fortin,

Coming from the outside, one can have a more unbiased view on things. As a international environmental technology student at Camosun College, I have noticed a few things around town that I think would further improve the already high living standard of Victoria.

I am a prospecting emigrant from Sweden and the issue I would like to raise to your attention is noise pollution. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Noise pollution can cause annoyance and aggression, hypertension, high stress levels, tinnitus, hearing loss, sleep disturbances, and other harmful effects. Furthermore, stress and hypertension are the leading causes to health problems, whereas tinnitus can lead to forgetfulness, severe depression and at times panic attacks. We all read about beached whales being due to naval sonar – i.e. marine noise pollution. Also worth noticing is that noise pollution is also a cause of annoyance for us humans as well . A 2005 study by Spanish researchers found that in urban areas households are willing to pay approximately four Euros per decibel per year for noise reduction. (REF). That’s a lot of money!

Worth noting as well is that noise pollution often persists because only five to ten percent of people affected by noise will lodge a formal complaint. Many people are not aware of their legal right to quiet and do not know how to register a complaint.

Something that is really bothering me and the people I been asking about this issue is in particular the sirens of the emergency services. Of evident reasons these vehicles are equipped with sirens to call on your attention in traffic, but coming from a city of 250.000 people and living fairly close to the major hospital I didn’t hear as many ambulances as I do here in Victoria. I just feel it seems the drivers of the EMS vehicles like to use the sirens excessively instead of only when absolutely needed, e.g. going through intersection while running a red-light, clearing a path between vehicles and so on. In Sweden they seem to use the sirens more like horns on your own car. Honk when needed and of course use the flashing lights the vehicles are equipped with.

I’m proposing a by-law for the reduction of noise in Victoria.

I hope you agree and you put forward my proposal!

Best wishes,

Stefan Martensson

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Some of the information above are direct quotes from the wikipedia page about Noise Pollution. I do not claim that I have done any of the research nor have the intention of stating that any of the above research is mine. It’s the owner of the contributors of wikipedia and I just borrowed it for this letter with the reference to the page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_pollution

Report – CHEM120 – Stoichiometry of Chemical Reactions

Stefan Martensson C0347318

Procedure: Please refer to handout ‘Experiment #3’ and page 10-16, Chemistry 120 Lab Manual, 2009 Edition, Camosun College.

Theory: The Law of Constant Composition states that ‘the proportions of the elements in a compound are always the same, no matter how the compound is made’.

E.g. The reaction between heated copper and sulphur making copper sulphide (Cu2S).

Where we discovered by letting a copper thread be extensively heated with abundance of sulphur in a crucible until all sulphur had either fully reacted with the copper or burned off as sulphur dioxide.

The copper was then weighed and mass was recorded. More sulphur was added to the crucible and copper thread and was yet again set to heat up. This so the next measurement would indicate if a full reaction had occurred (about the same mass as the measurement after the first heating). Read the rest of this entry »

Report – ENVR206B – History Assignment

HISTORY ASSIGNMENT

Part 1 – 1830 – Proteins were discovered.

Proteins were first named and described by the Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius in 1838 (Britannica 2009).

To most people, the question of where life comes from has been formed more than once.  All living organisms from microbes to humans share two kinds of biomolecules; nucleic acids and proteins (Hickman, et al. 1997). The discovery of proteins and how it is so simply built, by only four or five different elements (C, H, O, N and usually S), yet with 20 different known building blocks, called amino acids, the complexity it can create is vast (Knox, et al. 1999). Read the rest of this entry »