Erik Dominguez
LAB 4: The Effect of Boiling Water Quality
Period 5
Introduction
Freshwater is necessary for living species to survive and it’s limited. It is limited because there is
only 1 percent of freshwater of the total surface water (Johnson, 2011). Even if planet Earth is
covered in water, most of that water is salt water. Freshwater contains abundant life in various
plant and animal species. Freshwater needs to be protected and preserved for future generations.
In other words, if someone lives in a developing country, with little or no access to fresh and
clean water the best water purification method is boiling water. Boiling water is simple, cheap,
and does not take long time purifying water.
First, boiling water is the best water cleaning treatment for person who is living in a developing
county. Boiling water is one of the most recommended methods simplest to purify water. Boiling
water is able to destroy bacteria, micro-organisms, viruses, protozoan, parasites, and all
pathogens (Hale, 2011). According to this evidence, we can say that boiling water can help us
from not drinking any kinds of bacteria or viruses that can affect our body. Also, one of the
disadvantages of boiling water is that it will not get rid of toxic metals or pesticides (Hale, 2011).
This means any harmful contaminant could concentrate in our water, which can make us feel
sick. But, we can also solve this problem by adding a few drops of bleach to purify our water so
we cannot anything toxic for our body.
Second, boiling water is the best water cleaning treatment. Boiling water is one of the most
recommended and cheapest to purify water. Boiling water works without electricity, and does
not waste a lot of water (Hale, 2011). When you consider that boiling water works without
electricity, this shows that you don’t have to spend lots of money to purify water. One
disadvantage of boiling water is that it can concentrate harmful chemical contaminants that do
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not vaporize as the relative pure water vapor boils off (Hale, 2011). This means that if any
harmful chemicals concentrate in our water, we could get sick because our water is not really
purified. One way we can solve this problem is by adding a few drops of bleach to purify our
water.
Finally, boiling water is the best water cleaning treatment. Boiling water is one of the most
recommended methods and doesn’t take a long time in purifying water. Boiling water doesn’t
increases health risks (Hale, 2011). This evidence shows that boiling water doesn’t increases
health risks, which means that you don’t have chances to increase risk of cancer in your body.
One disadvantage of boiling water is that energy is used to boil water (Hale, 2011). This means
that if you use energy to purify water, in the future you would not have more energy, and you
would not be capable to purify more water. One way that you can use to solve this problem is to
create your own fire with wood so you can boil your water.
In conclusion, boiling water is the best water cleaning treatment for person who is living in a
developing county.
Erik Dominguez
Methods
Materials
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Nitrogen test kit
Phosphorus test kit
Precision pH testing kit
Microscopes
Microscope slide
1 beaker
Tablets
Water
Gloves
Goggles
Tester tube
Pipette
Heating plate
Procedure
1. Test the N, P and pH of your
water, and record your results.
2. Put 400ml of water into beaker.
3. Put the beaker on the top of the
heating plate.
4. Put the heating plate at 212f, and
wait 20 – 30 minutes to boil water.
5. Wait 5 minutes until water cools
down. With a pipette, absolve
water from the beaker into a test
tube.
6. Put a tablet inside the test tube to
test N, P and pH of water.
7. Record your new results and
observations.
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Data/Results
Table 1
Before
Nitrogen (ppm)
Phosphorus (ppm)
pH
Number of Algae
Number of Protozoa
After
66
180
5.5
100
6
40
20
6.5
0
0
200
180
Concentration(ppm)
160
140
120
100
Nitrogen
80
Phosphorus
60
40
20
0
Before
After
Figure 1: Changes in Phosphorus and Nitrogen Concentrations (ppm) after Boiling Water.
Levels of Phosphorus and Nitrogen (measure in parts per million) were taken from contaminated
Lake Michigan water. The Water was then boiled for 20 minutes, and retested for the presence of
Phosphorus.
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6.6
6.4
pH Scale
6.2
6
5.8
5.6
5.4
5.2
5
Before
After
Level figure: 2 Changes in pH after Boiling Water.
Levels of pH (measure in parts per million) were taken from contaminated Lake Michigan water.
The Water was then boiled for 20 minutes, and retested for new pH levels.
Total Number of Organisms Counted
120
100
80
60
Algae
Protozoa
40
20
0
before
after
Figure 3: Changes in the Number of Algae and Protozoa after Boiling Water.
Counts were performed on the total number of living organisms (Algae and Protozoa) from
contaminated Lake Michigan water. The water was then boil for 20 minutes, and the purified
water was put under a microscope and counts were made again.
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Analysis
Figure 1 shows the change in Nitrogen and Phosphorus concentrations after boiling water. For
Nitrogen, prior to boiling, the contaminated water had a concentration of 66 parts per million.
After boiling water, the Nitrogen concentration decreased to 40 parts per million. Therefore,
boiling water decreases Nitrogen levels. Then was 180 parts per million of Phosphorus in the
contaminated water before boiling it. After boiling, that level decreased to 20 parts per million of
Phosphorus. Boiling significantly decreased the level of Phosphorus.
Figure 2 shows the change in pH before and after boiling water. Before boiling water the pH of
water was 5.5 parts per million. After boiling water, the pH was 6.5 parts per million. Therefore,
boiling water increases pH water levels.
Figure 3 shows the changes in number of algae and protozoa before and after boiling water.
Before boiling water, the average of Algae was 100 and the average of Protozoa was 6. After
boiling the water, my results changed to 0 in both Algae and Protozoa average. All these mean
that boiling kills those things.
Erik Dominguez
Conclusion and Discussion
I predicted that boiling water would be the best purification method for a person in a developing
country. I specifically predicted that it would improve the quality of water more than bleaching
and filtering water would. However, boiling water was better at removing living organisms than
bleach and filters, but not better at removing phosphorus or nitrogen. Boiling water also made
the pH level almost neutral. However, so did filtering and bleaching.
Some possible mistakes that could happen during the experiment was to not record all of the
information in the right order. Also, another possible mistake that could happen in our
experiment was to not test our experiment with other experiments. Something that we can do to
improve our experiment is to have new sophisticated equipment so our results can be more
accurate. This experiment is important because it can help us clean and purify water in case that
we’re living in a developing country with little access to clean water.
Erik Dominguez
References
Hale, S. “Water Treatment.” 2011. Chicago, IL
Johnson, L. “Water as a Limited Resource”. Environmentalism Today. Accessed 08 March
2011.