CEL 212- Environmental Engineering

2nd Sem 2012-13

Dr. Arun Kumar

Week 2 Lectures (Jan 8th, 8th, and 11th)
arunku@civil.iitd.ac.in
 Physical Water Quality Parameters
• Water characteristics that can be
perceived by senses
1. Turbidity
2. Color
3. Suspended solids
4. Taste
5. Temperature
• Show physical samples ???

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 Turbidity-Introduction
• “Turbid” indicates the presence of suspended
matters in water.
• “Turbidity” may by caused by colloids to coarse
dispersions. Other sources are of inorganic and
organic nature.
• It is important due to following aspects:
– Aesthetics
– Filterability: Water with high solids content is hard to
filter through filter and thus it becomes difficulty to water
treatment using filtration.
– Disinfection: This process is used to kill
microorganisms and thy can hide among suspended
matters. These suspended materials reduce the
disinfection potential of different disinfectants, such as
chlorine, ultra-violet radiation, ozone etc.
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 Turbidity-Measurement
• Uses principles of nephelometry:
– Here a light source illuminates the sample
and one or more photoelectric detectors are
used with a readout device to indicate the
intensity of scattered light at right angles to
the path of the incident light.
– Formazin suspension is used as a standard
– Turbidity as low as 0.02 NTU (u.e.,
Nephelometric turbidity units) (here: 40
NTU=40 Jackson candle turbidity units (JTU)

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 Turbidity-Application of Data
1. Water supply:
• This info is used to decide if water is good as a
source drinking water and if it requires any further
chemical treatment, etc. This measurements
indicate effectiveness of chemical treatment in a
drinking water treatment plant (DWTP).
2. Domestic and industrial waste treatment:
• This measurement is used to determine
effectiveness of wastewater treatment plant
(WWTP) for suspended solids removal. Using this
measurement, chemical dosage in chemical
treatment processes can be estimated.

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 Turbidity-Measurement
• Uses principles of nephelometry:
– Here a light source illuminates the sample
and one or more photoelectric detectors are
used with a readout device to indicate the
intensity of scattered light at right angles to
the path of the incident light.
– Formazin suspension is used as a standard
– Turbidity as low as 0.02 NTU (u.e.,
Nephelometric turbidity units) (here: 40
NTU=40 Jackson candle turbidity units (JTU)

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 Turbidity-Think About It!
• What things cause turbidity in:
– (1) river water during a flash flood,
– (2) polluted river, and
– (3) domestic wastewater

• Why turbidity cannot be correlated with the

weight concentration of suspended matter
in water samples?

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 Color-Introduction
• Source of coloring material: organic matter such as
leaves, etc. at various stages of decomposition.
• Tannin, humic acids and lignin are primary organic
molecules constituting color to a solution. Iron also
contributes color to a solution (due to ferric humate).
• Natural color comes due to negatively charged colloidal
particles.
• It is important due to following aspects:
– Aesthetics
– Disinfection: Organic molecules responsible for producing color
are oxidized due to chlorine (one of the many disinfectants) and
form chlorine-substituted organic compounds, some of them have
been reported carcinogens also (i.e., cancer causing). Thus it
reduces effectiveness of chlorine to kill microorganisms present in
water.

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 Color-Measurement
• Sometime pretreatment of samples is required to remove
suspended material to measure color of a sample.

• Potassium chloroplatinate (K2PtCl6) tinted with small

amounts of cobalt chloride gives color similar to natural
color and thus this combination is used as a standard for
deciding degree of color in a sample.

• Color produced by 1 mg/L of platinum (as K2PtCl6 ) is

used as the standard unit of color.
• Procedure:
– Make different dilutions of 500 mg/L Pt, with cobalt added and
compare samples with different diluted standard to provide range
for color in terms of Pt concentration.

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 Color-Application of Data
1. Useful to indicate absence of color in
water used for domestic supplies and
industrial consumption

2. Color is used to indirectly determine the

trihalomethane formation potential in a
water during the chlorination process.

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 Color-Think About It!
1. Discuss causes of color in water.

2. What is “apparent” and “true” color?

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 pH-Introduction
• It indicates the intensity of the acid or alkaline
condition of a solution.
• It is used to express hydrogen-ion activity in a
solution.
• Useful for all wet-chemistry reactions where water
molecule is involved.
• pH = -log10 [H+], where [H+] represent hydrogen
ion concentration (dilute solutions)
– For pure water at 25degC, Kw =10-14
– So pH=pOH = 7 (here pOH =-log10 [OH-];
pH+pOH=pKw)
– These values are temperature-dependent as it affects
Kw.

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 pH-Measurement
• Hydrogen electrode is used to measure hydrogen
ion activity.
• Only for dilute solutions, concentration can be
assumed to be equal to activity.
• In this course we assume dilute solution,
unless it is mentioned otherwise.
• Acid range: pH between 0 and 7
• Alkaline range: pH between 7 and 14

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 pH-Think About It!
1. Show relationship between pOH and
hydroxyl ion concentration.
2. A decrease in pH of one unit represents
how much of an increase in hydrogen-ion
concentration?
3. Why pH is important in wet-chemistry

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 Suspended Solids
• Total demand depends on following requirements:
– Residential demand
– Commercial demand
– Industrial demand
– Fire-fighting demand
– Public use
– Water lost or unaccounted for

• It depends on following factors:

– Climate
– Geographic location
– Size, population and economic condition of community,
– Extent of industrialization
– Metered water supply, cost of water, supply pressure

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 pH
• Total demand depends on following requirements:
– Residential demand
– Commercial demand
– Industrial demand
– Fire-fighting demand
– Public use
– Water lost or unaccounted for

• It depends on following factors:

– Climate
– Geographic location
– Size, population and economic condition of community,
– Extent of industrialization
– Metered water supply, cost of water, supply pressure

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 Odor
• River/stream water
• Lake water
• Ground water (Tube well water)
• Rain water
• Wastewater effluent (treated for human
consumption)
– An effort towards reuse and recycle!
– Is it acceptable to use it for human consumption?

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 Color
• Say one person consumes=X liters per day (i.e., “X”
lpcd( a short form of liters per capita per day)

• Total number of population in a community =“P”

• Total daily water demand = (X) *(P) liters per day

• Say amount of water required for duration = “T” days

• Total amount of water required (Vtotal)= (X)*(P)*(T) liters

• The water source should have this much (i.e.,Vtotal) to be

considered as a potential water source.

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 Chemical Water Quality Parameters

• Water characteristics that involves

chemical/biological reactions
1. Alkalinity
2. Acidity
3. Chemical oxygen demand (COD)
4. Biological oxygen demand (BOD)
5. Total organic carbon (TOC)
6. Theoretical oxygen demand (ThOD)

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 Alkalinity
• Per capita demand is different in normal
conditions and in drought conditions.

• Water demand also fluctuates

– Seasonally (maximum demand in July and August)
– Daily (more for working days than holidays)
– Hourly (more in morning and evening per day, i.e.,
two hours of peak demand over a 24-hour duration)

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 Acidity
• But, what about water quality of this water source? What if this water
source doesn’t have good water and we might need to provide
further treatment?
– Leads to the consideration for water quality aspect of a given water
source!
• Among different water source types, consider following for
evaluating their potential
– Levels of different water quality parameters
– Amount of treatment required to meet water quality characteristics for
the desired use
(The water quality characteristics are improved depending on water’s final
usage and thus, its important to know the final use of the water)

• Overall: Water quality and available water

volume-Both aspects should be considered
during selection of a particular water source for
a particular type of water usage.
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 Hardness
• Per capita demand is different in normal
conditions and in drought conditions.

• Water demand also fluctuates

– Seasonally (maximum demand in July and August)
– Daily (more for working days than holidays)
– Hourly (more in morning and evening per day, i.e.,
two hours of peak demand over a 24-hour duration)

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 Chemical Oxygen Demand
• Per capita demand is different in normal
conditions and in drought conditions.

• Water demand also fluctuates

– Seasonally (maximum demand in July and August)
– Daily (more for working days than holidays)
– Hourly (more in morning and evening per day, i.e.,
two hours of peak demand over a 24-hour duration)

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 Dissolved Oxygen
• Per capita demand is different in normal
conditions and in drought conditions.

• Water demand also fluctuates

– Seasonally (maximum demand in July and August)
– Daily (more for working days than holidays)
– Hourly (more in morning and evening per day, i.e.,
two hours of peak demand over a 24-hour duration)

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 Biological Oxygen Demand
• Per capita demand is different in normal
conditions and in drought conditions.

• Water demand also fluctuates

– Seasonally (maximum demand in July and August)
– Daily (more for working days than holidays)
– Hourly (more in morning and evening per day, i.e.,
two hours of peak demand over a 24-hour duration)

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 Total Organic Carbon
• Per capita demand is different in normal
conditions and in drought conditions.

• Water demand also fluctuates

– Seasonally (maximum demand in July and August)
– Daily (more for working days than holidays)
– Hourly (more in morning and evening per day, i.e.,
two hours of peak demand over a 24-hour duration)

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 Theoretical Oxygen Demand
• Per capita demand is different in normal
conditions and in drought conditions.

• Water demand also fluctuates

– Seasonally (maximum demand in July and August)
– Daily (more for working days than holidays)
– Hourly (more in morning and evening per day, i.e.,
two hours of peak demand over a 24-hour duration)

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 Microbial water quality parameters
• Fecal coliforms
• Total coliforms
• Coliphage
• Total culturable count (in terms of colony
forming units: CFU)

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