Abstract
Do you want your hair to be shiny after you wash it? Do you want your clothes to stay bright and soft after laundering, and last a long time? You might think that a special shampoo or detergent can make this happen, but in this chemistry science fair project, you’ll discover that how well people and things get clean has a lot more to do with the type of water used for washing than any special shampoo or soap. Did you know that water can be classified as either soft or hard? Soft water lathers and cleans better than hard water. Using this clue, you’ll test different common water types to figure out which type is the softest and which is the hardest.
Objective
To determine the relative hardness of different common water types.
You are viewing: Which Water Sample Was The Hardest Why
Introduction
Do you love to take a bubble bath filled with thick, hissing suds that you can sink down into? Do you like to take those bubbles and coat yourself from head to toe with white foam until you look like old man winter? Or do you sculpt the bubbles into towers and mountains, or hide your bath toys in them, so that your toys can’t get eaten by an evil shark?
However you enjoy your bath bubbles, you might be surprised to learn that when you pour a small amount of liquid bubble soap into the water coming out of your faucet, the amount of bubbles you can make depends upon the hardness of your water. You might be thinking “What? Water isn’t hard! You can easily put your hand down into it, right?” That’s true, but the term hardness, when used to talk about water has a different kind of meaning. Hardness is a word that geologists and other water scientists, like hydrologists, use to describe how many tiny particles of minerals are in the water.
Read more : Which Body Cavity Would Be Opened To Perform A Hysterectomy
Minerals are the building blocks of rocks. Minerals are not made by people, but by nature. If you’ve ever seen a diamond, emerald, or a ruby, you’ve seen a special and expensive kind of mineral, called a gem. In water, the common minerals that you will find are calcium and magnesium cations (pronounced CAT-eye-un). Cations are atoms that are missing some of their electrons (the negatively charged parts of an atom).
How do these minerals get into water? To understand this, you first need to know a little bit about acids and bases. Pure water is neutral, which means it is not acidic or basic; however, rainwater is slightly acidic, like orange juice. As this slightly acidic rainwater passes through mineral deposits, like the calcium-containing limestone that was used to build the Great Pyramids of Egypt, it reacts with the minerals and changes them into a form that can be dissolved in water, just as you can dissolve a spoonful of sugar in a glass of water. In this way, calcium and magnesium cations get into the water supply.
Is the hardness of water the same everywhere? No, take a look at the map below of the United States from the United States Geological Survey. The areas in deep blue are where the water is the “softest,” with low levels of dissolved minerals in the water. The areas in medium blue and white have greater levels of dissolved minerals, and the levels in red are areas where the water is the hardest, with high levels of calcium and magnesium cations in the water. So, if you live in states like Maine, Vermont, the Carolinas, Alabama, or Georgia, you might have never even heard of hard water, but if you live in states like Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, or west Texas, hard water is something you deal with every day.
What happens when you have hard water? Well, the harder the water (the more calcium and magnesium hardness minerals you have in the water), the more soap or detergent you need to get things clean. In other words, harder water makes less soapy lather. So, if you live in an area with hard water and you want to wash your clothes, dishes, or yourself, it will be harder to get these things clean than if you live in an area with soft water—water without a lot of dissolved minerals. Hard water interferes or reduces lathering (the formation of suds or bubbles). Because of hard water, a film can build up on shower doors and walls, or bath tubs, sinks, and faucets. Hair washed with hard water might look less shiny than hair washed with soft water. Clothing fabrics might be dull, gray, and scratchy, and wear out more quickly. Finally, water pipes in your house, and appliances that use water might not work very well over time because of build-up of hard water deposits. Is it bad to have hard water? No. In fact, the minerals in hard water are thought to contribute to human health. Hard water is mainly just a bother when it comes to cleaning, or in keeping pipes and water-using appliances working well.
Read more : Which Describes Emotional Intimacy
So, how do you measure the hardness of water? There are chemistry kits that will tell you approximately how many tiny parts of calcium and magnesium you have in your water, but in this chemistry science fair project, you are going to use liquid soap to compare the hardness of different kinds of water. You will see how high of a bubbly lather you can create with each type of water.
Terms and Concepts
- Hardness
- Geologist
- Hydrologist
- Particle
- Mineral
- Calcium
- Magnesium
- Cation
- Electron
- Acid
- Base
- Limestone
- Dissolve
Questions
- What is the difference between hard and soft water?
- Is the hardness of water the same everywhere?
- What problems does hard water cause?
Materials and Equipment
- Permanent marker
- Shaking jars, cups, or bottles with lids (3)
- Should be equally sized and equally shaped
- Any size is a possible option, but containers that are similar in size to typical water bottles work well.
- Can be glass or clear plastic, though plastic does not have the risk of breakage.
- If you use glass jars, then you will also need safety goggles. Safety goggles are available from an online supplier such as Carolina Biological catalog #646706C.
- Distilled water (1 gallon)
- Bottled mineral water (1 gallon), sometimes called “spring water”; not the carbonated kind
- Tap water (1 gallon)
- Metric measuring cup
- Eye dropper; available at drug stores
- Liquid dishwashing soap (1 bottle)
- The kind for washing dishes by hand; not the kind for dishwashers
- A stopwatch that has a seconds reading
- A helper
- Lab notebook
Experimental Procedure
Global Connections
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) are a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all.
Variations
Careers
If you like this project, you might enjoy exploring these related careers:
Related Links
- Science Fair Project Guide
- Other Ideas Like This
- Chemistry Project Ideas
- My Favorites
Cite This Page
General citation information is provided here. Be sure to check the formatting, including capitalization, for the method you are using and update your citation, as needed.
MLA Style
APA Style
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHICH
