Every day, people are exposed to numerous environmental elements that impact their health; some of which are beneficiary, while others are hazardous and may lead to negative health outcomes. While some of these elements are natural gases, others- such as lead, mercury and arsenic- are heavy metals. One of the most hazardous heavy metals of this group is cadmium. Research has proven that cadmium has very life threatening issues it can cause people, but it also can be very useful in our society. There are several topics that are drawn closely when it comes to cadmium. These topics are:.
1. How/when does cadmium enter the environment?.
2. What are the detrimental effects of the chemical?.
3. What are the benefits of this chemical?.
4. What are the properties of the chemical?.
This review of the element cadmium will be following these four topics.
How/When Does Cadmium.
Enter The Environment?.
Cadmium is a heavy metal that is commonly found within the earth's crust. In its natural state, it is an inexpensive soft silver/white metal that is typically found, produced and harvested by manufacturers that are mining expensive metals by the likes of zinc, copper and lead (Mead, 2010). As these more precious metals are collected, the smelting processes separates cadmium particles from the other metals, which is one of the many causes of health problems associated with cadmium exposure and will be addressed later within this section. .
The Element Cadmium 3.
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Cadmium can be found in the air, soil, and water. Along with being in the soil, cadmium exists as air particles that are usually from the previous mentioned mining process; where cadmium is exposed to high temperatures to separate it from other metals and then also in the production of products that we use every day (Mead, 2010).
Emissions of cadmium from the incineration of municipal solid waste, medical waste or other types of waste have generally been successfully addressed by the application of best available technology that is capable today of capturing more than 99% of the incinerator fume cadmium emissions.
