clipped from chemistry.about.comNational Chemistry Week - Elements in the Human Body
Sunday October 18, 2009
Today marks the start of National Chemistry Week, an ACS-sponsored event designed to help foster an interest and understanding of chemistry. This year's focus is on the elements, so I thought the best way to kick off National Chemistry Week would be to introduce the elements found in the human body. 99% of the human body is made up of just six elements.
clipped from jchemed.chem.wisc.edu
What could be more central to the study of chemistry than the periodic table of the elements? It combines all of the known elements into a tabular form, arranged by atomic number, grouping elements together by similarities in their chemical properties. "Chemistry—It's Elemental" is exactly what this year's National Chemistry Week is celebrating—and it is no accident that this is the 140th anniversary of Mendeleev's periodic table.
clipped from chemistry.about.comMost of the human body is made up of water, H2O, with cells consisting of 65-90% water by weight. Therefore, it isn't surprising that most of a human body's mass is oxygen. Carbon, the basic unit for organic molecules, comes in second. 99% of the mass of the human body is made up of just six elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus.
clipped from jchemed.chem.wisc.edu
What could be more central to the study of chemistry than the periodic table of the elements? It combines all of the known elements into a tabular form, arranged by atomic number, grouping elements together by similarities in their chemical properties. "Chemistry—It's Elemental" is exactly what this year's National Chemistry Week is celebrating—and it is no accident that this is the 140th anniversary of Mendeleev's periodic table.
clipped from chemistry.about.com
- Oxygen (65%)
- Carbon (18%)
- Hydrogen (10%)
- Nitrogen (3%)
- Calcium (1.5%)
- Phosphorus (1.0%)
- Potassium (0.35%)
- Sulfur (0.25%)
- Sodium (0.15%)
- Magnesium (0.05%)
- Copper, Zinc, Selenium, Molybdenum, Fluorine, Chlorine, Iodine, Manganese, Cobalt, Iron (0.70%)
- Lithium, Strontium, Aluminum, Silicon, Lead, Vanadium, Arsenic, Bromine (trace amounts)
Liquid oxygen in an unsilvered dewar flask. Liquid oxygen is blue.
Warwick Hillier, Australia National University, Canberra
Photograph of graphite, one of the forms of elemental carbon.
U.S. Geological Survey
NGC 604, a region of ionized hydrogen in the Triangulum Galaxy.
Hubble Space Telescope, photo PR96-27B
Calcium is a metal. It readily oxidizes in air. Because it makes up such a large part of the skeleton, about one-third of the mass of human body comes from calcium, after water has been removed.
Tomihahndorf, Creative Commons License
Red phosphorus is one of several forms taken by this element.
RTC, wikipedia.org
Chunk of potassium metal with peroxides/superoxides (yellow crystals) and ozonide (red coloring) on its surface
Justin Urgitis, www.wikipedia.org
Sodium metal chunks under mineral oil.
Justin Urgitis, wikipedia.org
Vial of chlorine gas.
Ben Mills
Chlorine is a part of hydrochloric acid, used to digest food. It is involved in proper cell membrane function.
Photograph of the element magnesium, with a penny to indicate size of the sample.
U.S. Geological Survey
Crystals of the nonmetallic element sulfur.
Smithsonian Institution
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