Chemical Properties
Some of the chemical characteristics of POPs include low water solubility, high lipid solubility, semi-volatility, and high molecular masses. POPs with molecular masses lower than 236 g/mol are less toxic, less persistent in the environment, and have more reversible effects than those with higher molecular masses. POPs are frequently halogenated, usually with chlorine. The more chlorine groups a POP has, the more resistant it is to being broken down over time. One important factor of their chemical properties such as lipid solubility results in the ability to pass through biological phospholipid membranes and bioaccumulate in the fatty tissues of living organisms.
Read more about this topic: Persistent Organic Pollutant
Famous quotes containing the words chemical and/or properties:
“We are close to dead. There are faces and bodies like gorged maggots on the dance floor, on the highway, in the city, in the stadium; they are a host of chemical machines who swallow the product of chemical factories, aspirin, preservatives, stimulant, relaxant, and breathe out their chemical wastes into a polluted air. The sense of a long last night over civilization is back again.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“A drop of water has the properties of the sea, but cannot exhibit a storm. There is beauty of a concert, as well as of a flute; strength of a host, as well as of a hero.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)