Aquatic Chemistry
This MIT OpenCourseWare course, offered through the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography, covers the quantitative treatment of chemical processes in lakes, oceans, rivers, estuaries, groundwaters, and wastewaters. It opens with a review of chemical thermodynamics, then moves through acid-base reactions, precipitation-dissolution equilibria, coordination chemistry, and reduction-oxidation processes. The emphasis throughout is on equilibrium calculations as the main tool for understanding what governs the chemical composition of natural waters and how inorganic pollutants behave once released into them. Materials include lecture notes and problem sets drawn from MIT's graduate-level curriculum in civil and environmental engineering. As with other MIT OCW offerings, all course materials are free to access and there is no certificate. The course suits students with a chemistry background who want a rigorous, calculation-based grounding in environmental and marine chemistry.