Hard Water free essay sample

The purpose of this lab is to determine whether a liquid is hard water or not. Background: Hard water is the water that has a high amount of mineral in it, usually Ca2+ and Mg+. These cations enter the source of water by leaching from minerals within a wet underground layer of water- bearing rock, or an aquifer. According to the WHO, hard water is not harmful to human’s health but it’s a serious problem in the water industry. Household plumbing and appliances are also greatly affected by hard water conditions. Some of the effects include clogged pipes, water heater inefficiency and hard scaling. Hard water is also linked to decreased water flow or water pressure and seized (frozen) valves in faucets, water heaters, and fixtures. However, some researches prove that drinking too much hard water caused heart diseases in men or eczema in children. As the result, WHO set a standardize amount of how much calcium and magnesium can exist in drinking water to prevent damages. We will write a custom essay sample on Hard Water or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Analyzing skill and an experiment are needed to test whether a liquid is hard water or not. First, add a buffer solution to keep the solution basic. Next, put a small amount of Eriochrom Black T so that the color of the water would change based on the amount of Ca2+ or Mg+. Observe the change of color. Then, a solution named EDTA should be added to determine how much Ca2+ there is in the water. Add EDTA until the water turns blue. Then use analyzing skill to figure out whether the water is hard or soft. Citation. The shampoo will then lather and creates more bubbles; that’s greater to bathe in. 3) Pots and pans used for boiling water often develop a coating of scale in homes that use hard water. What might this scale be? The scale might be magnesium and calcium. After the water reaches its boiling point, all the water molecules would turns into gas evaporates, left the solid magnesium and calcium at the bottom of the pans. 4) Why might the water of one region be much harder than another? The water of different region has different hardness level because water comes from different sources of underground aquifers. The amount of calcium and magnesium in the rocks in the aquifers varied. If the water of a region happened to come from aquifer of high calcium/magnesium, then it would be much harder than water from another area. 5) Why is it important to make up all of the reagents used in this experiment in distilled water rather than tap water? It’s important to make up all of the reagents used in this experiment in distilled water rather than tap water because if we used tap water (which is also hard water) as a buffer, we would be added more calcium and magnesium to the tested water without knowing it. Therefore, the final result of how hard the water is would be incorrect. We would conclude that the water is much harder than how it really is. Conclusion: After this experiment, the hardness of 2 different sources of water, Elk Grove tap water and Wilton well water is determined. The well water of Wilton is about two times harder than the Elk Grove tap water. Well water needed averagely 28. 5 drops to turns into sky blue while Elk Grove tap water only needed 16. The difference is about 12. 5 drops. Therefore, the hypothesis is fully supported. Well water is harder than tap water because the water from the well came directly from the underground aquifers while tap water, even though it might come from the same source, the water company must somehow distilled it before it was put into used. The government has set a standard of how much calcium and magnesium could be in order to keep everyone healthy and prevent diseases. However, there were people in suburban area, to save some money, use well water in daily life. This is very dangerous. In our lives, there are many times we used hard water without realizing it. For example, the shampoo was originally full of hard water. The same chemical, EDTA, is added to shampoo to keep it lathers. We must be careful with cooking at home with tap water because different regions have different amount of Calcium and Magnesium. To test how hard the water is, put tap water into a pot then boils it. Do this before cooking. After all the water evaporates, if there was a thick scale at the bottom of the pot, then the water is very hard. Either choose not to use it or go buy a water softener. If there was little or no scale at all, then the water is soft water.