Properties of Pollutants

What are the three states of matter in which pollutants can exist?

The energy form of a pollutant affects its impact on the environment.

• True

• False

The significance of a pollutant's density in determining its environmental impact is:

• It determines how far the pollutant will spread in the environment.

• It affects the color of the pollutant.

• It influences the smell of the pollutant.

• It has no impact on the environment.

Reactivity influences the behavior of pollutants in the environment by:

• Increasing their persistence and accumulation

• Decreasing their persistence and accumulation

• Having no effect on their persistence and accumulation

• Only affecting their physical state

Specificity in the context of pollutants is defined as:

• The ability of a method to detect a particular pollutant among others.

• The concentration of pollutants in a given area.

• The impact of pollutants on human health.

• The rate at which pollutants are emitted into the atmosphere.

What is the difference between high persistence and low persistence pollutants?

Toxicity as it relates to pollutants is described as:

• The degree to which a substance can harm humans or animals.

• The ability of a substance to dissolve in water.

• The rate at which a substance evaporates.

• The color change a substance undergoes when exposed to air.

Bioaccumulation is the process by which:

• organisms accumulate toxic substances faster than they can eliminate them

• organisms eliminate toxic substances faster than they accumulate them

• organisms neither accumulate nor eliminate toxic substances

• organisms are unaffected by toxic substances

Biomagnification is the process by which:

• toxins become more concentrated in successive trophic levels of a food chain.

• energy is transferred from one trophic level to the next.

• nutrients are cycled through the ecosystem.

• species evolve over time.

Which of the following is a primary pollutant?

• Sulfur dioxide

• Ozone

• Nitric acid

• Peroxyacetyl nitrate