Exercise: #7) Consider DDT's structure. Use its structural featues to explain why DDT is highly soluble in lipids and very poorly soluble in water.

DDT and DDE are displayed above. Save .pdb files of DDT and DDE to your desktop. Using RasMol, which can be downloaded at: http://mc2.cchem.berkeley.edu/Rasmol/. Click on the RasMol bond distance feature to determine the C-C interatomic distance between the non-ring carbons in DDT and DDE. Record those values and explain why one is shorter than the other. Provide a mechanism for the conversion of DDT to DDE.

 
Extra Credit Math teaser: Assume that 100 million pounds of DDT wound up in the environment every year for 30 years and that DDT, its metabolites and degradation products have an average half life of 8 years, but DDT has not been used over the past 40 years. How much DDT remains in the environment today?