3.03 Calorimetry Lab

One of the wonders of this planet is water. Water makes up 65% of humans, and 70% of the Earth. It is also common knowledge that humans cannot survive three days without it. Water is essential. If almost three-fourths of Earth is made up of water, why are there still so many people in the world suffering from a lack of it? Although not all water can be used for drinking purposes, in many places, water that is drinkable- is polluted or deluded by many agricultural and industrial motives and damage humans have caused (Friend). In this experiment, the goal is not to purify muddy water completely from microorganisms and bacteria, but to find the most efficient way to cleanse it from the dirt and soil particles that cause the murky color using physical
and chemical methods. The physical methods to clean muddy water is called filtration. Filtration is the separation between solids and liquids, using a variety of materials: cloth, paper (coffee filter), and charcoal. For each filtering method, the same amount of water will be poured through each filter material. The clearness of the filtered water will be compared, as well as the pros and cons (Blackwell).
The chemical methods use chemicals to remove the particles in the water.
Chemicals should satisfy the following characteristics: if it’s safe to use, easily found in a market, and if it’s in a powder or liquid format so that different concentrated solutions can be used for tests. Aluminate Sulfate (Alum), salt, and white vinegar satisfy these and are the chemicals that will be used. The different concentration of the Alum solution (Alum dissolved in water) as well as the mixed solution of Alum with other materials respectively (salt and white vinegar) will apply to the same amount of dirty water. The results of clearness of different mixed solution and different concentration will be measured and
compared.(Blackwell)
The result of the test will be measured by the clearness of the water in terms of turbidity.
Turbidity is the clearness/cloudiness of water when a light is shown through."It is an optical characteristic of water and is an expression of the amount of light that is scattered by material in the water when a light is shined through the water sample"(“Turbidity”). Because the cost of a professional turbidimeter is quite expensive, there will be separate tools combined to substitute one, including a LED light source (flashlight), a photoresistor, and a multimeter, which measures the resistor value of the photoresistor. The reason the photoresistor is used is because it can show if the water is actually dirty or not objectively, because the naked eye is subjective. When the photoresistor is covered, the multimeter-which is connected to the photoresistor, indicates a higher resistor number when there is less light, and lowers in number when it is in contact and receives more light. If the water is dirty, it has more solid particles in it, therefore more light is scattered and vice versa
(Hardy).
Purifying water is a complicated process still in the world today. But cleansing the turbidity of the water has shown the improvement in the science field. In Instructables.com, one user with the purpose to make camping easier, also used Alum in their project, and fully cleansed a water bottle full of dirt and mud ("How to Purify Muddy Water."). Following that, a rising scientist, Mohammad Abdul Hasnat, has "helped develop a reactor with electrodes that removes harmful nitrates from drinking water"(“Chemist wins prize for water-purifying tech”). His work has helped with future solutions for purifying water as well.
This experiment is uniquely designed to find the most efficient and economic method that can be used in this situation, provided the materials. The problem is that surface water is not clean, nevertheless safe, to have someone drink it. Leveraging the methods to clean water such as Alum, mixed with common materials explore many solutions to this problem that many countries are facing. This is why it is so important to cleanse water from impurities- and cleaning muddy water is one step forward, toward that goal.