Chemistry is the branch of science that deals with study and analysis of fundamental building blocks of matter, interaction of different substances and their outputs. Breakdown study of matter provided us the in-depth understanding of complex elements. This made us capable to artificially build the substitutes for uncountable natural substances that were inevitable to day to day easy going of human life.
Last century has witnessed the gradual take over of natural products by artificial substitutes daily life from kitchens to emergency life-saving medicines. Some of the subfields of chemistry that became crucial in the latest century are Environmental chemistry, Green chemistry, food chemistry, medicinal chemistry, Nano-chemistry, and Nuclear chemistry. Let’s know about these branches and what they are dealing with, in a broad way.
Environmental Chemistry
As the human population is rapidly increasing, the exploitation of nature and natural resources are reaching new levels. Environmental chemistry deal with the scientific study of chemical and biochemical phenomena that occur in natural places and the impact of humans on them. It is divided into air chemistry, soil chemistry, and water chemistry.
Environmental chemistry focuses currently on the phenomena like heavy metal pollution of soil by the industries and their flow to food cycle, algal blooms and eutrophication due to the nutrition leaching to water bodies from agricultural lands, urban runoff of pollutants like gasoline, motor oil, and other hydrocarbons.
This branch of chemistry plays important role in identifying the impact of different artificial products on the environment and designing methods to reduce the same., Hence it should be considered as one of the vital branches of science.
Green Chemistry
Green chemistry or otherwise called sustainable chemistry deals with the design and manufacture of products and processes that are less hazardous and cause less impact on the environment. It is relatively a new branch of chemistry and has a high scope of development as the awareness of environmental protection is highlighted throughout the world.
It also plays important role in the researches to find reliable alternatives to nonrenewable resources. You can get details about this here.
Food chemistry
This discipline deals with the biological and non- biological food products and their interactions with other chemical components in food. This branch is responsible for the development of different food processing techniques. They carry out rigorous testing before implementing latest techniques to analyze the effect of the process on the food items.
Medicinal chemistry
Probably the most funded branch of chemistry will be medicinal chemistry. It is actually the combination of different biological sciences and Pharmacology with chemistry. Because of this, we have a deep understanding of pathogens which simplified the process of manufacturing drugs.
But the challenge is the outbreak of new species of pathogens and the genetic flexibility of the existing ones, which demands frequent modification of the drugs. Researches are going on in different fields apart from drugs as well.
Nano Chemistry
Nanochemistry combines the possibilities of Nanoscience and chemistry. Nanochemistry got attention after the introduction of compounds like polydimethylsiloxane, Cadmium Selenide because of their transformative power.
Nanochemistry is also responsible for the manufacture of materials like carbon nanotubes, graphene, and fullerenes, which are going to revolutionize a lot of industries with their remarkable electric and mechanical properties.
Nuclear Chemistry
Nuclear Chemistry is the area of chemistry that deals with radioactivity and nuclear transmutation. It deals with actinides and other radioactive elements and equipment like nuclear reactors which are designed to perform nuclear processes. It has a vital role in providing the energy requirements in the world. It also deals with a medical procedure like radiation therapy. There is high hope of development in this area of chemistry in the coming years.
To get an overview you can go through this video
Advancement in chemistry has made human life safer and easier than before. But there is always the other side to it. The introduction of chemical fertilizers and pesticides have made living things prone to unknown challenges. So chemistry has played an important role in getting us where we are. For a better future, the advancement in this field will is a pivotal part.