Removing Impurities in Water Through

Boiling –A Boring Lab Report

By Matias Santiago

JCVD or 8D

4/7/11

OMG its water boiling. That is SOOOO interesting.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ….
Introduction
The purpose of this experiment is to determine whether fresh water or salt water boil off more rapidly/
this topic is important because it helps you to analyze the purity of a water for potential future usability.
My investigation was conducted by following a procedure of my own writing and collecting the data that
was produced by that experiment. My independent variable was whether there were contaminants
present in the water and my dependent variable was how much of the water actually boiled off. My
control group was 50ml of fresh water and my experimental group was the 50ml of water with the
teaspoon of salt in it. My hypothesis was that if the amount of contaminants increases, the amount of
time it takes to boil off the same amount of water will increase.

Materials
2 glass cups

Salt

A teaspoon

A hotplate/burner

Procedure
1. Raise 100ml of water to a boil
2. Pour 50ml into each cup of water
3. Mix in a teaspoon of salt into 1 of the glasses
4. Keep them at a boil for 5 minutes
5. Allow both glasses of water to cool down
6. Visually compare the difference between the 2 amounts of remaining water
7. Record your observations

Observations:
After 5 minutes, the fresh water was gone and there was still some salt water clinging onto the bottom
of the salt water cup.

Results and Analysis

From what was described above, I believe that one could make the basic inference that water with any
impurity whatsoever in it will always boil off slower then fresh water. 1 surprising thing that happened
was that the salt water one left behind these marvelous little crystals. I have one question as a result of
running this experiment and it is whether this method of testing water is actually used. I don’t know why
that interests me so much but it does.

Conclusion
My hypothesis was that the more impurities you add to a cup of water the longer that water is going to
take to boil off. My results confirm my hypothesis because you as I wrote earlier the fresh water one
was completely boiled off after 5 minutes as opposed to the slat water that was still sitting there,
despite the fact that there was less of it then when I began my experiment. Nothing really went wrong,
except for while transferring the water that was boiling in the first trial I conducted to a colder place; I
somehow managed to spill some boiling water on myself. Not my best moment. Some of the sources of
the inevitable error were the fact that I could only barely get them to fit on my kitchen’s burner. I also
managed to spill some water, (see sentence 3 of this paragraph) so that probably messed around with
my results. I learned that water with impurities does actually boil off slower then fresh water. I would
really like to find out how this principle is used in the real world. You know, for like useful things?

To the left, two glasses and to

the right, 1 teaspoon.

A
Hotplate

SALT!!!!!!