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Consequences of Carbon and its Oxides in the Environment

Carbon forms many millions of compounds of which its two oxides namely carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide are of particular significance and vital consequences In carbon dioxide, a single carbon joins with two oxygens to produce a gas essential to plant life. In carbon monoxide (CO), a single oxygen joins the carbon, creating a toxic, but important compound. The first gas to be distinguished from ordinary air, carbon dioxide is an essential component in the natural balance between plant and animal life. Animals, including humans, produce carbon dioxide by breathing, and humans further produce it by burning wood and other fuels. Plants use carbon dioxide when they store energy in the form of food, and they release oxygen to be used by animals.

Flemish chemist and physicist Johannes van Helmont discovered in 1630 that air was not, as had been thought up to that time, a single element rather it contained a second substance, produced in the burning of wood, which he called "gas sylvestre." Thus he is recognized as the first scientist to note the existence of carbon dioxide. More than a century later, in 1756, Scottish chemist Joseph Black showed that carbon dioxide which he called "fixed air" combines with other chemicals to form innumerable compounds. This and other determinations that Black made concerning carbon dioxide, led to enormous progress in the discovery of gases by various chemists of the late eighteenth century. By that time, chemists had begun to arrive at a greater degree of understanding with regard to the relationship between plant life and carbon dioxide. Up until that time, it had been believed that plants purify the air by day, and poison it at night. Carbon dioxide and its role in the connection between animal and plant life provided a much more sophisticated explanation as to the ways plants "breathe."

Around the same time that Black made his observations on carbon dioxide, English chemist Joseph Priestley became the first scientist to put the chemical to use. Dissolving it in water, he created carbonated water, which is used today in making soft drinks. Not only does the gas add bubbles to drinks, it also acts as a preservative. Though the natural uses of carbon dioxide are by far the most important, the compound has numerous industrial and commercial applications too. Used in fire extinguishers, carbon dioxide is ideal for controlling electrical and oil fires, which cannot be put out with water. Heavier than air, carbon dioxide blankets the flames and smothers them. In the solid form of dry ice, carbon dioxide is used for chilling perishable food during transport. It is also one of the only compounds that experiences sublimation, or the instantaneous transformation of a solid to a gas without passing through an intermediate liquid state, at conditions of ordinary pressure and temperature. Dry ice has often been used in movies to generate "mists" or "smoke" in a particular scene.

During the late eighteenth century, Priestley discovered a carbon-oxygen compound different from carbon dioxide. It was carbon monoxide. Though scientists had actually known of this toxic gas, released in the incomplete combustion of wood, from the Middle Ages onward, Priestley was the first to identify it scientifically. Industry uses carbon monoxide in a number of ways. By blowing air across very hot coke, the result is producer gas, which, along with water gas (made by passing hot steam over coal) is an important fuel. Producer gas constitutes a 6:1:18 mixtures of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen, while water gas is 40% carbon monoxide, 50% hydrogen, and 10% carbon dioxide and other gases.

Not only are producer and water gas used for fuel, they are also applied as reducing agents. Thus, when carbon monoxide is passed over hot iron oxides, the oxides are reduced to metallic iron, while the carbon monoxide is oxidized to form carbon dioxide. Carbon monoxide is also used in reactions with metals such as nickel, iron, and cobalt to form some types of carbonyls. Carbon monoxide produced by burning petroleum in automobiles, as well as by the combustion of wood, coal, and other carbon-containing fuels is extremely hazardous to human health. It bonds with iron in hemoglobin, the substance in red blood cells that transports oxygen throughout the body, and in effect fools the body into thinking that it is receiving oxygenated hemoglobin, or oxyhemoglobin. Upon reaching the cells, carbon monoxide has much less tendency than oxygen to break down, and therefore it continues to circulate throughout the body. Low concentrations can cause nausea, vomiting, and other effects, while prolonged exposure to high concentrations can result in death.

Carbon is released into the atmosphere by one of three means: cellular respiration; the burning of fossil fuels; and the eruption of volcanoes. When plants take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, they combine this with water and manufacture organic compounds using energy they have trapped from sunlight by means of photosynthesis—the conversion of light to chemical energy through biological means. As a by-product of photosynthesis, plants release oxygen into the atmosphere.

In the process of undergoing photosynthesis, plants produce carbohydrates, which are various compounds of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen essential to life. The other two fundamental components of a diet are fats and proteins, both carbon-based as well. Animals eat the plants, or eat other animals that eat the plants, and thus incorporate the fats, proteins, and sugars (a form of carbohydrate) from the plants into their bodies. Cellular respiration is the process whereby these nutrients are broken down to create carbon dioxide.

Photosynthesis and cellular respiration are thus linked in what is known as the carbon cycle. Cellular respiration also releases carbon into the atmosphere through the action of decomposers—bacteria and fungi that feed on the remains of plants and animals. The decomposers extract the energy in the chemical bonds of the decomposing matter, thus releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. When creatures die and are buried in such a way that they cannot be reached by decomposers—for instance, at the bottom of the ocean, or beneath layers of rock—the carbon in their bodies is eventually converted to fossil fuels, including petroleum, natural gas, and coal. The burning of fossil fuels releases carbon (both monoxide and dioxide) into the atmosphere. Because the rate of such burning has increased dramatically since the late nineteenth century, this has raised fears that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may create a greenhouse effect, leading to global warming. On the other hand, volcanoes release tons of carbon into the atmosphere regardless of whether humans burn fossil fuels or not.

About the Author

DrBadruddin Khan teaches Chemistry in the University of Kashmir, Srinagar, India.

Will the Carbon Dioxide level be too low for life in the distant future?

I read somewhere that carbon dioxide levels have been slowly declining over the course of Earth's history, and that eventually, C02 levels will be too low for life/plants to survive in the distant future. Is this true?

The existence of life has nothing to do with the mixture of gasses in the atmosphere. We has all kinds of life on earth in the form of cyanobacteria long before there was ever oxygen present. In fact, the oxygen we now breathe is a result of the bacteria's respiration processes. Oxygen seems to be ideal for life, but rest assured that if things change, some kind of life will change to accommodate the new environment.

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