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Elements around us
Elements around us
Long reads that connect the periodic table to real life — the iron of Chattogram’s ship-breaking yards, the gas under Sylhet, the salt harvest of Cox’s Bazar, the elements in your own body. Chemistry with an address.
Elements in Bangladesh
The iron of Chattogram: chemistry inside the ship-breaking yardsOn the beaches of Sitakunda, north of Chattogram, retired ships from every seafaring nation are taken apart plate by plate — and every torch-spark, brass fitting and rusting hull is a live chemistry lesson in iron, carbon, copper, zinc and lead.Fe · Cu · Zn · Pb · CNatural gas: Bangladesh’s hydrogen and carbon bank undergroundThe blue ring on a Bengali kitchen stove is the visible end of a story that begins kilometres underground — methane, molecules of hydrogen and carbon, a smell that had to be added on purpose, and even a whisper of helium.H · C · He · SThe golden fibre: the chemistry of juteJute is cellulose — chains of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen stitched by sunlight — and the fact that soil microbes can digest those chains, but not a polythene bag, is the whole ecological argument for Bangladesh’s golden fibre.C · H · OSix kilometres of chemistry: the Padma BridgeThe 6.15-kilometre Padma Bridge, opened in June 2022, is usually called an engineering triumph — but it is equally a chemical one: iron in tension, calcium and silicon in the concrete, zinc and manganese guarding the steel, and sacrificial anodes corroding on purpose.Fe · Ca · Si · Zn · MnThe invisible problem: arsenic in Bangladesh’s tubewellsArsenic, element 33, rides up from delta sediments into shallow tubewell water — colourless, tasteless, and detectable only by chemistry, which is also what defeats it: testing kits, iron-oxide filters and deeper wells.As · Fe · OSalt from the sea: the white harvest of Cox’s BazarOn the Cox’s Bazar coast, sunlight and wind evaporate seawater across beds divided like a chessboard — a fractional crystallisation of sodium chloride, with magnesium and potassium left behind in the bitter end, and iodine added later as .Na · Cl · Mg · Ca · K
Elements in everyday life
You are made of stardust: the elements in your bodyNinety-six percent of you is just four elements — oxygen, carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen — and a mere three grams of iron keeps every breath of oxygen moving through your blood.O · C · H · N · CaWhat's really on your plate? A Bangla dinner under the microscopeA plate of bhaat, dal, shak and salt is a delivery service for a couple of dozen elements — carbon from sunlight, iron from the karai, potassium from the banana, iodine from the salt pot.C · H · O · Fe · KThe periodic table in your kitchenA matchbox, a karai, a roll of foil, a knife, a copper-bottom pot and a tin of chuna: walk your kitchen and you will find half the periodic table within arm's reach.Fe · Al · Cr · Cu · FThe invisible ocean: what's in every breathEvery breath draws from a strict recipe: 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 1% argon and a 0.04% pinch of that quietly runs the climate — plus a little water vapour and a thin shield of ozone overhead.N · O · Ar · C · HeThree minutes that made everything: the chemistry of the universeIn its first three minutes the universe made hydrogen, helium and a whiff of lithium — every other element was forged later, in stars, supernovae and colliding neutron stars, which is why the gold on your hand is star-crash debris.H · He · Li · C · OFestival of light: the chemistry of fireworks and flame coloursEvery firework colour is an element's signature — sodium gold, strontium crimson, barium green — written by electrons falling back down their shells, the same chemistry chemists use in the laboratory flame test.Na · Cu · Sr · Ba · Mg