Wat-er We Drinking

For this project we were given the goal to showcase our understanding of chemistry to be able to filter or clean water in such ways to better/ clean its properties and possibly make it drinkable.

So our group got to work with the largest amount of polluted undrinkable water there is. Sea water.

Sea water which makes up 70% of this planet is not drinkable to most humans: this due to the very high salt concentrations inside of it as well as the sand and other solid materials that contaminates it.

With this we got to work building a model that could take sea water from being undrinkable to drinkable here's how.

First we had to get salt water and instead of drive over an hour to the beach we decided to make it ourselves. Doing this by using the ration of 3.5ml of salt for ever 100ml of water to get an exact 3.5% salt percentage level. This mixed with a good amount of sand and we were able to replicate sea water. This does not include any organic life like plankton that could be in the water however our model is able to get rid of that as well.

With our contaminate water we then ran it through a coffee filter first. This would get rid of any large sediments such as sand rocks and possibly any large clumps of undissolved salt.

Next was boiling the water, this proved rather difficult because our plan was to boil the water then capture the water vapor that was released of it. This water vapor which has diconnected bonds to the physical salt element and due to it being simply pure water vapor when its condensed and reduced in temperature the cohesion between the water molecules would bring them together and then form clean drinkable water.

This didn't work in our first model as we used a plastic tube, this proved as an error as water vape is extremely hot and ended up burning the inside of our water tube when collecting the vapor and giving off other plastic gasses to contaminate the water. So next we extended out our model so the water vapor would travel as long a distance as possible to cool off. And secondly we would use all glass elements which could hold up the water vapor heat and could adhere to the water allowing it to run down a pipe and collect.

Solution to the Global Water Crisis

Below is a picture of our water model, on the bottom left is a Bunsen burner which would boil our glass full of contaminated salt water. This water which is then boiled and the water vapor constricted inside the glass tube to rise and then after time cool. The water when cooled results in water molecules bonding together (cohesion) and the more and more molecules that bond together result in it becoming big enough to become a liquid state at which the molecules stick to the side of the tube and then slowly falls down using gravity and the weight of the water to be collected in the tube at the far right.

Procedure for making then cleaning water water

  1. get 100 ml of water

  2. pour 3.5 ml of salt into water

  3. pour couple pinches of sand into water and mix

  4. now we have sea water check TDS level with the blue reader and record levels

  5. pour water through a coffee filter slowly and watch sand and other solids get filtered out

  6. check TDS level

  7. put salty water in desalination model and start boiling.

  8. wait for water to boil and watch as water is collected in vile at the end.

  9. check TDS level of water

  10. If water is between 50-1000 TDS level then its safe to drink.

Major concepts

Polarity in molecules: This is caused by the differences of electronegativity between atoms.

  • This knowledge was proven useful in our project as we had to know how at the molecular level sodium chloride (which make salt) was formed. Now we know that the chloride atoms were negatively charged while the sodium atoms were positively charged.

electronegativity: the amount at which an atom can attract other bonding another electron to it from other elements.

  • this used in our project specifically between the bonds of the sodium and chloride molecules which are only attracted to each other through their difference of electronegativity.

Non polar covalent bonds: when the electron is shared equally between two atoms

polar covalent bonds: when the electron is shared unequally between atoms

Ionic Bonds: When the electron is stolen from one atom to another

  • in this case the non-metal gains the electron and becomes a cation while the metal looses the electron and becomes an anion. Also this was used in our project specifically, due to us using sodium chloride where, the bond between which was ionic as the sodium stole the electron from the chloride

Monoatomic ions: these are made from only one atom and the charge can be found suing the periodic table

polyatomic ion: these have multiple atoms making up the molecule. The charge can be found by combining the overall charge of all the different atoms together. For us we were able to distinguish salt as a polyatomic ion as sodium and chloride are two different molecules being bonded together.


Chemistry behind the project

At the molecular level, salt dissolves in water due to electrical charges and due to the fact that both water and salt compounds are polar, with positive and negative charges on opposite sides in the molecule. The bonds in salt compounds are called ionic because they both have an electrical charge—the chloride ion is negatively charged and the sodium ion is positively charged. Likewise, a water molecule is ionic in nature, but the bond is called covalent, with two hydrogen atoms both situating themselves with their positive charge on one side of the oxygen atom, which has a negative charge. When salt is mixed with water, the salt dissolves because the covalent bonds of water are stronger than the ionic bonds in the salt molecules.


Reflection

Two things I did well was leadership and communication. This was a new group for me working in as well as a whole new subject which I wasn't normally used to so making sure the communication was right between our group mates proved vital for brining us all together and getting the job done. During this I also felt for once the needing for leadership so by taking charge fo the project and pointing our skills in our own areas we were able to get the project done in a timely manner.

Two things I need to improve upon are collaboration and cultural competence. I lacked in collaboration due to stresses of dead week and poor time management skills which I feel I very much so need to grow upon. As well as cultural competence where I lacked in empathy towards my other group mates hoping to get this project done and realizing that all groups need to se each other as struggling as well and respect that. A skill I also need to work on and lan to do so in the upcoming projects,