The waterworks or wastewater treatment plant operator lacking in knowledge of basic water chemistry and stan- dard laboratory procedures is like the auto mechanic who does not know how to operate an engine analyzer and/or how to interpret the results of such analysis.

As the chapter opening suggests, water and wastewater operators both perform and analyze the results of labora- tory tests. Because of this, they must have a working knowledge of water chemistry. In this chapter, we discuss basic water chemistry — the key word is basic. Not all water and wastewater operators must be chemists, but they all must be able to perform very basic chemical testing. More importantly, all water and wastewater operators must be competent operators — basic knowledge of water chemistry fundamentals aids in attaining competency.

“The first type measures a bulk physical property of the sample, such as volume, temperature, melting point, or mass. These measurements are normally performed with an instrument, and one simply has to calibrate the instrument to perform the test. Most analyses, however, are of the second type, in which a chemical property of the sample is determined that generates information about how much of what is present.”1

When it comes to actually studying water at its most basic elementary level, you first must recognize that no one has ever seen a molecule of water. All that is available to us is equations and theoretical diagrams. When we look at the H2 O formula, we instantly think that water is simple. It is a mistake to think of water as being simple. It is not — it is very complex.

Although no one has seen a water molecule, we have determined through x-rays that atoms in water are elabo- rately meshed. Moreover, although it is true that we do not know as much as we need to know about water — our growing knowledge of water is a work in progress — we have determined many things about water. A large amount of our current knowledge comes from studies of water chemistry.

Water chemistry is important because several factors about water that is to be treated and then distributed or returned to the environment are determined through sim-

ple chemical analysis. Probably the most important deter- mination that the water operator makes about water is its hardness. The wastewater operator, on the other hand, uses chemistry to determine other factors. For example, the wastewater operator may be interested in some of the same chemical results as water operators, but also must deter- mine the levels of organics in the waste stream.

Simply, when you add chlorine to water to make it safe to drink or safe to discharge into a receiving body (usually a river or lake), you are a chemist. Chemistry is the study of substances and the changes they undergo. This chapter covers the fundamentals of chemistry specific to water and/or wastewater practices.

Before beginning our discussion of water chemistry, it is important for the reader to have some basic under- standing of chemistry concepts and chemical terms. Thus, the following section presents a review of chemistry terms, definitions, and concepts. All will enhance the reader’s foundational understanding of the material presented.

Chemistry has its own language; thus, to understand chemistry, you must understand the following concepts and key terms.

a. Miscible means capable of being mixed in all proportions. Simply stated, when two or more substances disperse themselves uni- formly in all proportions when brought into contact, they are said to be completely soluble in one another, or completely miscible. The precise chemistry definition is: “homoge- nous molecular dispersion of two or more substances.”2 Examples are:

mix with one another up to a certain propor- tion. In many environmental situations, a rather small amount of contaminant is solu- ble in water in contrast to complete misci- bility of water and alcohol. The amounts are measured in parts per million.

a. Often water carries solids or particles in sus- pension. These dispersed particles are much larger than molecules and may be comprised of millions of molecules. The particles may be suspended in flowing conditions and ini- tially under quiescent conditions, but even- tually gravity causes settling of the particles. The resultant accumulation by settling is often called sediment or biosolids (sludge) or residual solids in wastewater treatment vessels. Between this extreme of readily fall- ing out by gravity and permanent dispersal as a solution at the molecular level, there are intermediate types of dispersion or suspen- sion. Particles can be so finely milled or of such small intrinsic size as to remain in sus- pension almost indefinitely and in some respects similarly to solutions.

a. Emulsions represent a special case of a sus- pension. As you know, oil and water do not mix. Oil and other hydrocarbons derived from petroleum generally float on water with negligible solubility in water. In many instances, oils may be dispersed as fine oil droplets (an emulsion) in water and not readily separated by floating because of size and/or the addition of dispersal promoting additives. Oil and, in particular, emulsions can prove detrimental to many treatment technologies and must be treated in the early steps of a multistep treatment train.

a. An ion is an electrically charged particle. For example, sodium chloride or table salt forms charged particles on dissolution in water; sodium is positively charged (a cation), and chloride is negatively charged (an anion). Many salts similarly form cations and anions on dissolution in water.

a. Concentration is often expressed in terms of parts per million (ppm) or mg/L. Sometimes parts per thousand (ppt) or parts per billion (ppb) are also used.

chemically with other elements. All the atoms of an element are the same in chemical behav- ior, although they may differ slightly in weight. Most atoms can combine chemically with other atoms to form molecules.

and changes in composition of substances. Water is an example of this composition; it is composed of two gases, hydrogen and oxygen. Water also changes form from liquid to solid to gas, but does not necessarily change composition.

ments chemically combined. Examples include water (H2 O), which is a compound formed by hydrogen and oxygen, and carbon dioxide (CO2 ), which is composed of carbon and oxygen.

molecules or electrolytes in solution. Water molecules are in continuous motion, even at lower temperatures. When two water molecules collide, a hydrogen ion is transferred from one molecule to the other. The water molecule that loses the hydrogen ion becomes a negatively charged hydroxide ion. The water molecule that gains the hydrogen ion becomes a positively