| Chlorofluorocarbons | (Environmental Engineering) Synthetic organic compounds used for refrigerants, aerosol propellants (prohibited in the U.S.), and blowing agents in plastic foams. CFCs migrate to the upper atmosphere destroying ozone and increasing global warming. Typical atmospheric residence times are 50 to 200 years. |
| Consumers | (Environmental Engineering) Organisms which consume protoplasm produced from photosynthesis or consume organisms from higher levels which indirectly consume protoplasm from photosynthesis. |
| Conversion | (Environmental Engineering) The fraction of a species entering a system which is converted to product. |
| Corrosive waste | (Environmental Engineering) A waste that is outside the pH range of 2 to 12.5 or a waste that corrodes steel at a rate greater than 6.35 mm (0.25 in) per year. One of EPA's four hazardous waste properties. |
| Covalent bond | (Environmental Engineering) A bond in which electrons are shared approximately equally by two atoms. |
| Equivalent | (Environmental Engineering) The mass of the compound which will produce one mole of available reacting substance. Thus, for an acid, this would be the mass of acid which will produce one mole of H+, for a base, one mole of OH-. |
| Fermentation | (Environmental Engineering) Energy production without the benefit of oxygen as a terminal electron acceptor, i.e. oxidation in which the net effect is one organic compound oxidizing another. See respiration. |
| Groundwater | (Environmental Engineering) Water which is contained in geologic strata. Also properly written as two words, ground water. |
| Heterotrophic | (Environmental Engineering) A group of organisms which obtain carbon for synthesis from other organic matter or proteins. |
| Influent | (Environmental Engineering) The fluid entering a system, process, tank, etc. An effluent from one process can be an influent to another process. See effluent. |