INDEX

PAGE
S.NO CONTENT NUMBER

1. NEED OF WATER 2

2. HISTORY OF WATER PURIFICATION 3

BLEACHING POWDER AND ITS

3. PREPARATION 5

USE OF BLEACHING POWDER IN

4. STERILIZATION OF WATER 5

5. EXPERIMENT 6

6. RESULT 8

7. BIBLIOGRAPHY 9

1
INTRODUCTION

Need of water
Water is an important and essential ingredient in our quest for survival on this planet.
It is very essential for carrying out various metabolic processes in our body and also
to carry out Hemoglobin throughout the body.

A daily average of 1 gallon per man is sufficient for drinking and cooking purposes. A
horse, bullock, or mule drinks about 11 gallons at a time. standing up, an average
allowance of 5 gallons should be given for a man, and 10 gallons for a horse or a
camel. An elephant drinks 25 gallons, each mule or ox drinks 6 to 8 gallons, each
sheep or pig 6 to 8 pints. These are minimum quantities. One cubic foot of water = 6
gallons (a gallon = 10 lbs.).

In order to fulfill such a huge demand of water, it needs to be purified and supplied in
a orderly and systematic way. But with the increasing world population, the demand
for drinking water has also increased dramatically and therefore it is very essential to
identify resources of water from which we can use water for drinking purposes. Many
available resources of water do not have it in drinkable form. Either the water
contains excess of Calcium or Magnesium salts or any other organic impurity or it
simply contains foreign particles which make it unfit and unsafe for Drinking.

2
History of water purification
In 1854 it was discovered that a cholera epidemic spread through water. The outbreak
seemed less severe in areas where sand filters were installed. British scientist John
Snow found that the direct cause of the outbreak was water pump contamination by
sewage water. He applied chlorine to purify the water, and this paved the way for
water disinfection. Since the water in the pump had tasted and smelled normal, the
conclusion was finally drawn that good taste and smell alone do not guarantee safe
drinking water. This discovery led to governments starting to install municipal water
filters (sand filters and chlorination), and hence the first government regulation of
public water.

In the 1890s America started building large sand filters to protect public health. These
turned out to be a success. Instead of slow sand filtration, rapid sand filtration was
now applied. Filter capacity was improved by cleaning it with powerful jet steam.
Subsequently, Dr. Fuller found that rapid sand filtration worked much better when it
was preceded by coagulation and sedimentation techniques. Meanwhile, such
waterborne illnesses as cholera and typhoid became less and less common as water
chlorination won terrain throughout the world.

But the victory obtained by the invention of chlorination did not last long. After some
time the negative effects of this element were discovered. Chlorine vaporizes much
faster than water, and it was linked to the aggravation and cause of respiratory disease.
Water experts started looking for alternative water disinfectants. In 1902 calcium
hypo chlorite and ferric chloride were mixed in a drinking water supply in Belgium,
resulting in both coagulation and disinfection.

The treatment and distribution of water for safe use is one of the greatest
achievements of the twentieth century. Before cities began routinely treating drinking
water with chlorine (starting with Chicago and Jersey City in US in 1908), cholera,
typhoid fever, dysentery and hepatitis A killed thousands of U.S. residents annually.
Drinking water chlorination and filtration have helped to virtually eliminate these
diseases in the U.S. and other developed countries. Meeting the goal of clean, safe
drinking water requires a multi-barrier approach that includes: protecting source water

3
from contamination, appropriately treating raw water, and ensuring safe distribution
of treated water to consumers’ taps. During the treatment process, chlorine is added to
drinking water as elemental chlorine (chlorine gas), sodium hypochlorite solution or
dry calcium hypochlorite. When applied to water, each of these forms “free chlorine,”
which destroys pathogenic (disease-causing) organisms. Almost all systems that
disinfect their water use some type of chlorine-based process, either alone or in
combination with other disinfectants. In addition to controlling disease-causing
organisms, chlorination offers a number of benefits including:
• Reduces many disagreeable tastes and odors;
• Eliminates slime bacteria, molds and algae that commonly grow in water supply
reservoirs, on the walls of water mains and in storage tanks;
• Removes chemical compounds that have unpleasant tastes and hinder disinfection
• Helps remove iron and manganese from raw water.

As importantly, only chlorine-based chemicals provide “residual disinfectant” levels

that prevent microbial re-growth and help protect treated water throughout
the distribution system. For more than a century, the safety of drinking water supplies
has been greatly improved by the addition of bleaching powder. Disinfecting our
drinking water ensures it is free of the microorganisms that can cause serious and life
threatening diseases, such as cholera and typhoid fever. To this day, bleaching powder
remains the most commonly used drinking water disinfectant, and the disinfectant for
which we have the most scientific information. Bleaching powder is added as part of
the drinking water treatment process. However, bleaching powder also reacts with the
organic matter, naturally present in water, such as decaying leaves. This chemical
reaction forms a group of chemicals known as disinfection by-products. Current
scientific data shows that the benefits of bleaching our drinking water (less disease)
are much greater than any health risks from THMs and other by-products. Although
other disinfectants are available, bleaching powder remains the choice of water
treatment experts. When used with modern water filtration methods, chlorine is
effective against virtually all microorganisms. Bleaching powder is easy to apply and
small amounts of the chemical remain in the water as it travels in the distribution
system from the treatment plant to the consumer’s tap, this level of effectiveness
ensures that microorganisms cannot recontaminate the water after it leaves the
treatment.

4
What is bleaching powder?
Bleaching powder or Calcium hypochlorite is a chemical compound with formula
Ca(ClO) 2. It is widely used for water treatment and as a bleaching agent bleaching
powder). This chemical is considered to be relatively stable and has greater available
chlorine than sodium hypochlorite (liquid bleach).
How is bleaching powder prepared?
It is prepared by either calcium process or sodium process.
Calcium Process
2 Ca(OH)2 + 2 Cl2 → Ca(ClO)2 + CaCl2 + 2 H2O
Sodium Process
2 Ca(OH)2 + 3 Cl2 + 2 NaOH → Ca(ClO)2 + CaCl2 + 2 H2O + 2 NaCl
How can this chemical be used to sterilize water?
This chemical can be used for sterilizing water by Using 5 drops of bleach per each
half gallon of water to be purified, and allowing it to sit undisturbed for half an hour
to make it safe for drinking. Letting it sit several hours more will help reduce the
chlorine taste, as the chlorine will slowly evaporate out. A different reference advises
when using household bleach for purification; add a single drop of bleach per quart of
water which is visibly clear, or three drops per quart of water where the water is NOT
visibly clear. Then allow the water to sit undisturbed for half an hour.
What are the actual processes involved in disinfecting and purifying water?
The combination of following processes is used for municipal drinking water
treatment worldwide:
1. Pre-chlorination - for algae control and arresting any biological growth
2. Aeration - along with pre-chlorination for removal of dissolved iron and manganese
3. Coagulation - for flocculation
4. Coagulant aids also known as polyelectrolyte’s - to improve coagulation and for
thicker floc formation
5. Sedimentation - for solids separation, that is, removal of suspended solids trapped
in the floc
6. Filtration - for removal of carried over floc
7. Disinfection - for killing bacteria
Out of these processes, the role of Bleaching powder is only in the last step i.e. for
Disinfection of water.

5
 EXPERIMENT

AIM: To Determine the dosage of bleaching powder required for sterilization or

disinfection of different samples of water.

MATERIALS REQUIRED: Burette, titration flask, 100ml graduated cylinder,

250ml measuring flask, weight box, glazed tile, glass wool. Bleaching
Powder, Glass wool, 0.1 N Na2S2O3 solution, 10% KI solution, different
samples of water, starch solution.

PRE-REQUISITE KNOWLEDGE:
1. A known mass of the given sample of bleaching powder is dissolved in water to
prepare a solution of known concentration. This solution contains dissolved chlorine,
liberated by the action of bleaching powder with water.
CaOCl2+H20 Ca(OH)2+Cl2

2. The amount of Chlorine present in the above solution is determined by treating a

known volume of the above solution with excess of 10% potassium iodide solution,
when equivalent amount of Iodine is liberated. The Iodine, thus liberated is then
estimated by titrating it against a standard solution of Sodium thiosulphate, using
starch solution as indicator.
Cl2+2KI 2KCl+I2
I2+2Na2S2O3 Na2S4O6+2NaI

3. A known Volume of one of the given samples of water is treated with a known
volume of bleaching powder solution. The amount of residual chlorine is determined
by adding excess potassium iodide solution and then titrating against standard sodium
thiosulphate solution.

4. From the readings in 2 and 3, the amount of chlorine and hence bleaching powder
required for the disinfection of a given volume of the given sample of water can be
calculated.

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PROCEDURE:

1. Preparation of bleaching powder solution. Weigh accurately 2.5g of the given

sample of bleaching powder and transfer it to a 250ml conical flask. Add about 100-
150ml of distilled water. Stopper the flask and shake it vigorously. The suspension
thus obtained is filtered through glass wool and the filtrate is diluted with water (in a
measuring flask) to make the volume 250ml. The solution obtained is 1% bleaching
powder solution.

2. Take 20ml of bleaching powder solution in a stoppered conical flask and add it to
20ml of 10% KI solution. Stopper the flask and shake it vigorously. Titrate this
solution against 0.1N Na2S2O3 solution taken in the burette. When the solution in the
conical flask becomes light yellow in color, add about 2ml starch solution. The
solution now becomes blue in color. Continue titrating till the blue color just
disappears. Repeat the titration to get a set of three concordant readings.

3. Take 100ml of the water sample in a 250ml stoppered conical flask and add it to
10ml of bleching powder solution. Then add 20ml of KI solution and stopper the flask.
Shake vigorously and titrate against 0.1N Na2S2O3 solution using starch solution as
indicator as described in step 2.

4. Repeat the step 3 with other samples of water and record the observations.

7
RESULT:

Amount of the given sample of bleaching powder required to disinfect one litre of
water

Sample I = ………g

Sample II= ………g

Sample III= ………g

8
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
1. http://www.vlib.us/medical/sancamp/water.htm

2. http://www.cbseportal.com

3. http://www.jmooneyham.com/watp.html

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleaching_powder

5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_treatment

6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleach

7. http://www.ianrpubs.unl.edu/epublic/pages/publicationD.jsp?publicationId=358

8. http://www.water-research.net/watertreatment/chlorination.htm

9. www.edstrom.com/doclib/mi4174.pdf

10. www.epa.gov/safewater/mcl.html