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Solvent in Sewage Channel and its Consequences
An Exam as a Real Satire.
Ensslin, Walter, Krahn Roland, Skupin Stefan "Boeden untersuchen", (how to analyse soil), 2000, Quelle & Meyer (Germany), ISBN 3-299-61154-6, 19.90 - Euro, (the whole book is not translated in the moment)
(When you want to know more about exams or about the innovative remediation technology for heavy metals in soil and groundwater, please mail to the author Dr. Walter Ensslin (email: drensslin@aol.com))
In the future bathing town Hilden (Germany), a municipal official examines the canal in Oak Street in ICI.
Before he opens the channel cover in the street, he measures the solvent concentration of the air in the street over the canal.
He finds: Ethylacetate 1000ppm = 1000ml/m3 = 3,6 g/m3 and Toluene 20ppm = 20ml/m3 = 0,077 g/m3 air.
1. Already light-headed from the fumes, he considers these different statements. Wasn't there something with molar mass and volume? Unfortunately he is dreaming already, so that you must help him.
2. He was already frightened that the maximal work place concentration (MAK) for Ethylacetate (400ml/m3 air = 1,4g/m3) was exceeded by more than double.
Because he was not likely to remain for 8 hours in the canal however, and the Hilden resident is already accustomed to the air, he carefully opens the channel cover, removes the dirt sieve and climbs slowly down the oil-smeared ladder rungs. His hands are now smeared with fat (= C16H34). What was that about classes of mixtures again?
3. Inebriated by the solvents he wonders about the different isomers of C16H34. Consider whether you can help him: there are at least two isomers.
4. Carefully he washes his hands in the clear, delicately smelling water. At the same time he considers, whether it is better to wash the hands repeatedly with small amounts of water or once with the same total quantity of water. Help him now.
Unfortunately he does not consider at the time that his hands have surely become clean quite quickly, but are now also entirely fat free, becoming red and beginning to itch. (Ethylacetate causes a noticeable eczema).
5. Consider which of the two solvents in the water dissolved the fat better.
6. With his functioning sense slowing down, the official thinks about why there is so much more Ethylacetate than Toluene dissolved in the water. Already inebriated from the Toluene and Ethylacetate in the air, reasoning powers in his head are struggling. Aid is urgently necessary!
Rubber consists of long chains 
Which material in the wastewater could be responsible for that? He considers whether the firm becomes officially responsible for the costs of sealing the tubes again and also for the remediation costs.
8. How can one use one’s senses with a strongly smelling mixture to determine qualitatively and quantitatively the elements in the Ethylacetate in order to be very certain that it is not the far more dangerous Pentylacetate?
9. Well "anaesthetised" by the amount of Toluene (here below in the canal 600ml/m3), he lights himself a welcome cigarette.
What happens? Is the explosion limit for Toluene with 1,2% volume or for Ethylacetate (concentration here below ca. 30,000 ppm) with an explosion limit of 2,1% volume exceeded? We can calculate it for him only now unfortunately, and set up the reaction equation for the following explosive combustion of Toluene and Ethylacetate.
This is the last picture of a staunch official.