Chemistry Of Natural Water

The purpose of this experiment is to explore the
hardness of the water on campus. Hard water has
been a problem for hundreds of years. One of the
earliest references to the hardness or softness of
water is in Hippocrates discourse on water quality
in Fifth century B.C. Hard water causes many
problems in both in the household and in the
industrial world. One of the largest problems with
hard water is that it tends to leave a residue when
it evaporates. Aside from being aesthetically
unpleasing to look at, the build up of hard water
residue can result in the clogging of valves, drains
and piping. This build up is merely the
accumulation of the minerals dissolved in natural
water and is commonly called scale. Other than
clogging plumbing, the build up of scale poses a
large problem in the industrial world. Many things
that are heated are often cooled by water running
through
piping. The build up of scale in these pipes
can greatly reduce the amount of heat the cooling
unit can draw away from the source it is trying to
heat. This poses a potentially dangerous situation.
The build up of excess heat can do a lot of
damage; boilers can explode, containers can melt
etc. On the flip side of the coin, a build up of scale
on an object being heated, a kettle for example,
can greatly reduce the heat efficiency of the kettle.
Because of this, it takes much more energy to heat
the kettle to the necessary temperature. In the
industrial world, this could amount to large sums of
money being thrown into wasted heat. In addition
to clogging plumbing and reducing heating
efficiency, the build up of hard water also
adversely affects the efficiency of many soaps and
cleansers. The reason for this is because hard
water contains many divalent or sometimes even
polyvalent ions. These ions react with the soap
and although they do not form precipitates, they
prevent the soap from doing it's job. When the
polyvalent ions react with the soap, they form an...