Determining the oxygen content of water samples

Introduction BOD is one very common to measure the water quality. BOD (biological oxygen demand) shows the amount of water needed to decompose particular amount of organic material at the specific temperature during the 5 days period. In this experiment, the water samples will be kept for 5-7 days in the room temperature of about 20 degrees. The consumption of oxygen (BOD) is depended on the amount of microorganism present in the water sample tested. For the determination of the oxygen content it will be used the Winklers method. The practical part of the method involved a fixation and titration of the water sample. The following reaction takes place:

Mn 2+ + 2OH Mn ( OH ) 2

Formation of precipitate Brown color present

4 Mn ( OH ) 2 + O2 + 2 H 2 O 4 Mn ( OH ) 3

2 Mn ( OH ) 3 + 6 H + + K 2Mn 2+ + I 2 + 6 H 2O Precipitate is being dissolved I 2 + 2 S2O3 2 2 I + S4 O6 2 Iodine is reduces to iodine ion, blues color is formed with
starch Equipment: Burette 4 M KI solution 0,01M and 0,25 M MNa2S203 3M MnCl2 solution Starch solution 50% sulfuric acid Graduated pipettes Electronical stirrer

Method

While sampling water it is important to make sure that sampled water would not have any contact with air. Also, the water samples should be kept stored for as short as possible time before the experiment was started. In this case the samples are taken 8 hour before the experiment. The water is taken from 2 different places, lake and the pond. In both places the temperature of the water is measured. Some of the water is transferred into the 100,00 ml water, while whats left is stored is tightly closed bottles. Before the titration oxygen content in each water sampl is emasure with a digital oxygen sensor. The water in 100,00 ml bottles are fixed with by adding 1 ml of MncL2 and 1 ml of KI solutions in each bottle. These solutions should be kept for 15 minutes and then 1ml of sulfuric acid will be added to each, It will result in the dissolved precipitate. These solutions, now without precipitate will be titrated. For each titration 25,00 ml of the solution is needed. This solution is transformed to the conical flask and some starch is added until the color will be dark blue. The titration with Na2S2O3- is continued until the dark blue color of the solution disappears. For each location at least two titrations are performed. Also the control titration with tap eater is performed. Temperature of tap water is measured.

The same procedure of fixation and titration will be performed with the samples stored for 5 days. The results will be compared. The difference between oxygen content at the day one and day 5 is the approximate BOD (Biological oxygen demans) that shows how much oxygen was consumed during the five day period in the temperature of 20 oC. In addition to the testing of the samples from outside the tap water was also measured. The temperature of water Is also recorded. The BOD value is most commonly
expressed in milligrams of oxygen consumed per litre of sample during 5 days of incubation at 20 C

Data

Table 1: data of the Na2S2O3 volume needed for the titration of tap water.

Titration No Volume of Na2S2O3 used while titrating tap water (ml; 0,1 ml)

average

1,5

1,5

1,5

1,5

Table 2: data of the S2O32- volume needed for the titration of lake and pond water. The data is both at the initial point (right after the samples were collected) and after 5 days.

Lake Titration No Volume of Na2S2O3u sed for titrating the initial solution (ml; 0,01 ml) day 1 Volume of Na2S2O3 used for titrating the solution after 5 days (ml; 1 2 3 avera ge 1 2

Pond 3 averag e

1,5

1,6

1,8

1,6

1,5

1,5

1,5

1,5

2,5

2,5

2,5

3,0

3,0

2,5

2,8

0,1 ml) day 5

The tap water(which would normally have more of the organic matter, and so bigger decrease in the oxygen content ) has similar results with the pond and lake water, because these were cold water. Cold water has more oxygen that the warm one. Tap water temperature was 20 degree ,while lake and pond water 5.

The results obtained with the oxygen sensor will not beused since the oxygen sensor is not calibrated correctly.

Calculation
During the calculations we will consider the fact that 1 moles O2 dissolve din water
2 2 is equal to 4 moles of S 2O3 , so the mole value of S 2O3 will be divided by 4.

Tap water

n( S 2O32 ) = V ( S2 O32 )g ( S2 O3 2 ) = 0, 0015dm3 0, 025M = 3, 75 105 mol c n( S2O3 2 ) 3, 75 106 mol n(O2 ) = = = 9,375 106 mol 4 4 m(O2 ) = n(O2 ) M ((O2 ) 40 = 9,375 106 mol 32 gmol 1 40 = 0, 012 gL1 = 12mgdm3
(There is multiplication by 40, because the calculated value is only for 25,00 ml of the water, same multiplication will be done later on too) Lake water, day 1

n( S 2O32 ) = V ( S2 O32 )g ( S2 O3 2 ) = 0, 0016dm3 0, 025M = 4, 00 105 mol c n( S2O3 2 ) 4, 00 105 mol n(O2 ) = = = 1, 000 105 mol 4 4 m(O2 ) = n(O2 ) M ((O2 ) 40 = 1, 000 105 mol 32 gmol 1 40 = 0, 013gL1 = 13mgdm3
Pond water, day 1

n( S 2O32 ) = V ( S2 O32 )g ( S2 O3 2 ) = 0, 0015dm3 0, 025M = 3, 75 105 mol c

n(O2 ) =

n( S2O3 2 ) 3, 75 106 mol = = 9,375 106 mol 4 4

m(O2 ) = n(O2 ) M ((O2 ) 40 = 9,375 106 mol 32 gmol 1 40 = 0, 012 gL1 = 12mgdm3
Lake water, day 5

NB! Here the concentration of N2S203 is changed into 0,01 M.

n( S 2O32 ) = V ( S2 O32 )g ( S2 O3 2 ) = 0, 0025dm3 0, 01M = 2,50 105 mol c n(O2 ) = n( S2O3 2 ) 2,50 105 mol = = 6, 25 106 mol 4 4

m(O2 ) = n(O2 ) M ((O2 ) 40 = 6, 25 105 mol 32 gmol 1 40 = 0, 008 gL1 = 8mgdm3

Pond water, day 5

n( S 2O32 ) = V ( S2 O32 )g ( S2 O3 2 ) = 0, 0028dm3 0, 01M = 2,80 105 mol c n(O2 ) = n( S2O3 2 ) 2,80 105 mol = = 7, 00 106 mol 4 4

m(O2 ) = n(O2 ) M ((O2 ) 40 = 7, 00 106 mol 32 gmol 1 40 = 0, 009 gL1 = 9mgdm3

Table 4: calculated values of the oxygen content in the samplesof lake and pond water. The data is both at the initial point (right after the samples were collected) and after 5 days. Temperature of water in both cases were 5 oC.

Lake water sample Amount of dissolved oxygen (mg/dm3, 0,1) day 1 Amount of dissolved oxygen (mg/dm3, 0,1) day 5 13,0

Pond water sample 12,0

8,0

9,0

Table 5: The BOD is calculated by subtracting the values of day 5 from day 1.

Lake BOD (mg/dm3, 0,1 ) day 5 5,0

Pond 3,0

Values obtained with digital oxygen sensor is not considered, because the sensor was not correctly calibrated.

Conclusion and evaluation

From the results (table 2) we can see that the oxygen content in water sample from lake at the day one was 13,00 mg/dm3, 0,01, while the pond sample has smaller value of 12,00 mg/dm3, 0,01. After five days the values had decreases due to the presence of organic materials that were decomposed. At the day five lake water had oxygen content value of 8,00 mg/dm3, 0,01, while pond water sample 9,06 mg/dm3, 0,01. (Table 2) The decrease were different and so the BOD values. BOD of the lake water is 5,00 mg/dm3, and of the pond water 3,00 mg/dm3. (table 3) From the control sample of tap water, we seen that the oxygen content measured is 12,00 mg/dm3, which is higher than the normal one at the temperature of 20oC. In the instruction sheet that value given is 9,00 mg/dm3. This could possibly indicate that the sensor was not correctly calibrated. The reliability of the oxygen sensor is quite high since most of the repeated data collection showed similar or the same results. The amount of oxygen samples taken from outside is as clean as the tap water. At the temperature of 5 oC, tap water has the ca 12,8 mg/dm3 of oxygen dissolved, just like the lake or pond water had in the first days. The data collected here can also be considered reliable sine this may mean that the oxygen concentration would be less at the same temperature as that the tap water when measured.

The differences in BOD values between pond and pool waters indicated that there was different amount of organic material that has been dissolved. The results are most probably reliable, because no extra values are present. The fact that digital oxygen sensor was not calibrated correctly makes it harder to understand if the values obtained by the titration are reliable, since there is no possibility of checking it. For more reliable results the more accurate method with digital sensor is necessary, so this should be the main improvement. Another possible uncertainty might be the difference in color observed. It is possible that the color distinguished is not the same all the time. Improvements Ensure that the oxygen sensor is calibrated correctly both before storing the samples and after.

More samples can be done at different temperatures. This would help to see if values gotten is correct according to the temperature. In addition to these improvements, the white sheet of paper could be replaced under the conical flask and the titrated solution. This would help to distinguish similar color and reduce the uncertainty caused by this.