Q1) How can your purify water when hiking? Name two or three possibilities. Compare these methods in terms of cost and effectiveness. Are any of these methods similar to those used to purify municipal water supplies? Explain.
Answer:
One method of distillation is boiling the water (using solid fuel or starting a fire from wood) and collecting the condensed steam on a sheet. Another method involves the use of a small water purification device that can be purchased from stores. Both methods involve the use of equipment, especially in the second method. The first method may be easier to use as more of the items can be found from the surroundings (e.g. wood) but it is slower than the second method. The second method involves the use of special equipment that perhaps only experienced hikers would carry, although it may be faster to obtain purified water than the first method. None of these methods are similar to the ones used to purify municipal water supplies as the purification process at the treatment plants involve the adding of various chemicals in various stages and involves equipment ans substances which the average person would not have access to.
Q2) Explain why desalination techniques, despite proven effectiveness, are not used more widely to produce potable drinking water.
Answer:
Desalination techniques come at a relatively high cost and thus will not be used on as large a scale as cheaper methods as long as these cheap methods are available and able to meet demand for potable water. Also, the quantity of potable water produced from desalination is little. For example, Tampa Bay Water’s facility is the largest seawater desalination plant in North America but it can only produce 25 mgd of water at full capacity, which only satisfies about 10% of the region’s needs.
Q3) Water quality in a chemical engineering building on campus was continuously monitored because testing indicated water from drinking fountains in the building had dissolved lead levels above those established by the NEA.
A) What is the the likely major source of the lead in the drinking water?
Answer:
Likely sources include: the pipes (if plumbing is not done properly), soldering, and corrosion of the pipes in which the pipes are old and cracked.
B) Do the research activities carried out in this chemistry building account for the elevated lead levels found in the drinking water? Explain.
Answer:
Yes, if improper disposal of chemicals is being carried out, with these chemicals being dumped into a place where it is able to leak into the drinking water.
Q4) Some vitamins are water-soluble, whereas others are fat-soluble. Would you expect either or both to be polar compounds? Explain.
Answer:
We would expect the water-soluble vitamins to be polar and the fat-soluble vitamins to be non-polar. This is because like dissolves like, and since water is a polar substance it can dissolve the water -soluble vitamins which are also polar. Since fat is a non-polar substance it should dissolve the fat-soluble vitamins which are also non-polar.
References:
- Water supply. (n.d.). Retrieved February 22, 2017, from http://www.tampabaywater.org/tampa-bay-seawater-desalination-plant.aspx