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Lab Reports
Jun. 2nd, 2009 04:21 pmInteresting Science! content ahead. Be warned.
So, in addition from not wanting heavy metals in your drinking water, you probably don't want carcinogens in your drinking water. I mean, unless you do, but I don't. Those of us living in developed countries, however, tend to chlorinate our water. This kills all kinds of swimmy things in the water, but has the unfortunate side effect of reacting with their dead bodies to produce chlorinated compounds, including trihalomethanes (THMs) and chloroform. Fortunately for us, people noticed these and started to do something about it.
THMs are volatile, which means that they evaporate easily. You can boil the heck out of your water, and that gets rid of most of them in about four hours. If you want something slightly faster, you can pass it through a carbon filter, like the kind that goes over your home tap. We did the second method. After doing so, the analyzer couldn't actually find any more THMs in the sample. This is a machine that can find concentrations of less than one part per billion, or in layman's terms, one thousandth of one thousandth of a gram per liter, so I'm pretty sure it means there were no more THMs.
End result: filter your drinking water.
I also learned that if it has been pouring for a while, and then you take your water sample, most of the harmful stuff will already be out of the air and your water will be pure, pure, pure. In case you don't want to spring for a filter. Only if it has been pouring for, say, fifteen minutes though. Otherwise you get all kinds of stuff in your water, including nitric and sulfuric acids. No joke.
Why yes I am writing lab reports today. Why do you ask?
So, in addition from not wanting heavy metals in your drinking water, you probably don't want carcinogens in your drinking water. I mean, unless you do, but I don't. Those of us living in developed countries, however, tend to chlorinate our water. This kills all kinds of swimmy things in the water, but has the unfortunate side effect of reacting with their dead bodies to produce chlorinated compounds, including trihalomethanes (THMs) and chloroform. Fortunately for us, people noticed these and started to do something about it.
THMs are volatile, which means that they evaporate easily. You can boil the heck out of your water, and that gets rid of most of them in about four hours. If you want something slightly faster, you can pass it through a carbon filter, like the kind that goes over your home tap. We did the second method. After doing so, the analyzer couldn't actually find any more THMs in the sample. This is a machine that can find concentrations of less than one part per billion, or in layman's terms, one thousandth of one thousandth of a gram per liter, so I'm pretty sure it means there were no more THMs.
End result: filter your drinking water.
I also learned that if it has been pouring for a while, and then you take your water sample, most of the harmful stuff will already be out of the air and your water will be pure, pure, pure. In case you don't want to spring for a filter. Only if it has been pouring for, say, fifteen minutes though. Otherwise you get all kinds of stuff in your water, including nitric and sulfuric acids. No joke.
Why yes I am writing lab reports today. Why do you ask?
