Water Hardness Lab

The main purpose of this experiment was to determine the effects of water hardness and its implications. To be able to do this, the experiment was divided into many sections, that let us understand, calculate and determine many other things about different water samples such as concentration in different units, the effects of resin on the concentration, titration procedures and more. Being more specific about the importance of water hardness, the definition of this concept has to be explained in order to better understand the purpose of this experiment. According to Perlman (2014), water hardness is defined as “the amount of dissolved calcium and magnesium in the water. Hard water is high in dissolved minerals, both calcium and magnesium.”

Moreover, the Chemtrek explains that “the importance of the hardness of water is reflected in the fact that manufacturers of fabric and dishwashing detergents formulate their products with ingredients specifically designed to complex Ca2+ and Mg2+” (p.10-3). Also, the water hardness has a great importance when it comes to home and industries as well. For example, many researchers have shown that there is a relationship between water hardness and cardiovascular diseases. Even though this has not been completely proved, there are some standard levels of calcium and magnesium required to have for drinking water in order to prevent these issues. The water hardness levels of calcium have to be somewhere around 40ppm to 80ppm, and for magnesium around 20ppm to 30ppm. In industries, water hardness can also represent a problem if it not used in a certain way. For example, hard water can cause plumbing to clog, which is made by precipitation of calcium and magnesium. Together that solid formed can be very corrosive and can accumulate up until a certain point in which it damages the plumbing

The water hardness is most commonly measured using two different units, either parts per million or parts per gallon. The four samples involved in this project are: Filtered water from a water bottle, water from the Spring Creek Park at State College, water from the Janitor’s closet, and tap water from Copper Beech apartment. In this experiment, these samples were subjected to various tests and procedures to determine specific things in each case. These stages were, determination of water hardness by atomic absorption spectroscopy (AA), evaporation of the water to give total dissolved solids, divalent cation analysis by EDTA titration, determination of the hardness of water sample, water softening with a commercial water-conditioning agent in this case resin, and divalent cation removal ion exchange. After all these steps, and after testing all four of the water samples we were able to determine how to get the water hardness from any water sample the factors involved in the hardness levels, as well as its implications depending on what the water wants to be used for. Therefore, for this experiment there is an expectation of having the following