Metals and Water Essay

In a bid to curb the heavy metals such as lead from reaching the resident’s drinking water, the city’s water treatment plants should modify its water’s chemistry. This is done in order to lower its capability of corroding the pipes through a process known as corrosion control. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality will ensure that Flint City has a corrosion control program established. The new water supply being put in place should have the corrosion control plan to ensure that they are not conducting an uncontrolled human experiment on a city’s

To complete the research a scientist went out to the Delaware River three different times at 6 different locations (Shi, Allen & Grassi, 1998). He collected the water and brought it back to the lab to be tested (Shi et al., 1998). The research method that was used was sampling and collecting data to see if the river has a high rate of copper in it (Shi et al., 1998). The results of the journal were also conclusive. Data was shown that when the water went through treatment plants or through sewers the water would come out with more copper than without going through these places (Shi et al., 1998). In the long run, the water is safe depending on where and when you collect the water for use (Shi et al.,

The resultant qualitative and quantitative properties of the polluted water could have been predicted with chemistry. The possibility of lead entering the water system could have been anticipated from the chemical substances that exist within the Flint River. The Flint River demonstrated eight times more chloride in it than Detroit water. One of the properties of chloride is that it is considered to be highly corrosive to metals including lead and iron. However, these

There is a heat treatment method for unleaded brass alloy which contains no lead or containing a very small amount of lead. According to this heat treatment method, we can use unleaded brass alloy as an environment friendly material, so as to improve mechanical process ability, structural uniformity, wear resistance, cracking resistance and anti-corrosive property, so that we can prevent cracking and dezincificative corrosion occuring on the surfaces of processed articles. As a result, the unleaded brass alloy can be use in pipe fittings for drinking

According to ( Compton's by Britannica, 2011, SIRS discover) Lead is found in tap water and other water sources which is toxic metal

The rules for lead and copper have changed over the years, so let’s start at the beginning. Lead was originally regulated under the Public Health Service Act of 1962, which established a guideline of 0.050 mg/L (ppm) for lead in drinking water. This was carried over into the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974. It wasn’t until 1991 that regulation changed significantly under the Lead and Copper Rule. This rule regulates how public water supplies must deal with the potential of lead and copper in the drinking water. Additionally, there is also the Reduction of Lead in Drinking Water Act, which regulates the amount of lead that can be in products that could come into contact with drinking water, like pipes, plumbing fitting, fixtures, solder and flux.

Water treatment plants typically add and remove chemicals, and change the composition of a water source in order to supply clean and safe water to its residents. Lead pipes that contain soluble forms of lead can allow lead ions to react with hydrogen ions within water, causing a dissolution reaction with allows for those lead ions to leach into the water and contaminate it as seen here with the dissolution of galena: PbS(solid) + 2H+ Pb2+(aq) + H2S(aq) The first problem that occurred with the Flint Water Supply was the fact that they did not have a plan to maintain the protective layer that builds up along the walls of lead pipes. This layer is made up of lead phosphate and lead carbonate. The previous water treatment facility that the city used added orthophosphate PO43- which is a negative ion that will bond with the positive lead ions (Pb2+) in order to form a solid chemical known as lead(II) phosphate

Copper is a naturally occurring element that can be found in all plants and animals. A certain amount of copper is necessary for health, and the human body has developed a way to maintain the proper level of copper in it (Minnesota). Even so, large concentrations of copper, and general long-term exposure, can have a negative impact on the body. Symptoms include stomachaches, vomiting, diarrhea, liver and kidney damage, and even death (Lenntech). Exposure to copper comes from many areas, but the most common one is through the water. Copper is commonly found in plumbing pipes, which can lead to high levels of copper in drinking water and fresh water sources due to erosion. Lakes and streams are also treated with copper to prevent algae overgrowth (Group).

Recently, the residents of Flint, Michigan experienced a water crisis that caused lead to contaminate the water supply of thousands of people in the city. Although, Flint is a developed city within one of the worlds most successful countries, the water crisis of 2014 rocked the nation to its core, causing us to investigate how safe our drinking water really is and how social inequality continues to plague the country. The old pipes that channeled the water from the Flint River is lined with lead that has gone untreated with anticorrosive for many years. The Flint River is filled with iron which in itself is highly corrosive, but when mixed with lead is doubly hazardous to those who consume the water (CNN). As contaminated water flowed to the

To answer this question, we don’t have to look far. Last week, the Ithaca City School District shut off their water supply after the detection of “high levels of lead.” In Newark, New Jersey, 17,000 children are now being tested for lead poisoning. In Long Island, New York, dilapidated cesspools leaking nitrogen have led to a mass die-off of flora and fauna within the Long Island Sound. These incidents represent a fraction of the growing disaster that is our nation’s water infrastructure. Experts on urban water infrastructure have characterized water mains as “ticking time bombs.” Their characterizations are justified for the most part—many aging water mains have pipes made from wooden planks wrapped in metal coil. From 2004 to 2009, 316 contaminants were detected in water supplied to the public.

Without phosphate, a protective layer coating the inside of the pipe dissolved. Because many of the pipes in Flint were lead, the dissolving protective layer exposed the water to lead (The Chemistry behind Flint’s Water Crisis 2). According to Terese Olson, an Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan, water from rivers is the most challenging to treat, because of the amount of microorganisms and corrosive materials. As a result, engineers used copious amounts of chlorine to clean the dirty water (Peplow 3). Unfortunately, the Olson says that the price for chemicals like phosphoric acid have increased substantially over the past several years, engineers to look for areas to cut spending behest the causing cost conscious public officials. Evidently, chemical treatment was one of those areas. Officials in Flint opted to spend less on “corrosion inhibitors”, chemicals that combated coercion in the iron pipes used in the city’s tap water system. This is important because one of the main problems associated with the crisis was not just the lead in the water, but the corrosion of the pipes that carried the water into homes (Olson 20). Corrosion of these lead piped acted as a catalyst for the lead problems that

To prove the presence of copper nitrate as a product of the corrosion you can conduct two tests. Conducting a flame tests would prove it is copper nitrate, because copper would change the flames color to be blue-green color. To conduct a flame test you would take the copper nitrate and hold that over an open flame, and observe as the flame changes color. Another test that can be conducted would be taking the copper nitrate and adding sodium hydroxide. This proves the presence of copper because when sodium hydroxide and copper nitrate react you form a precipitate is formed, and is observed by noticing what appears to be a formation of a solid. The chemical formula for this reaction

At the same time, pipeline safety regulations have become more complete, driven by better understanding of materials available and better techniques to operate and maintain pipelines” (“Why Do We Need Pipelines” 1). Since the 1830’s pipelines have come a long ways. Now instead of being made of iron, they are manufactured with very strong steel.

Water is essential for life as we know it on earth. It is used by plants

Copper does not rust and when in water, it turns reddish orange. After prolonged exposure, Copper develops a coat of green film called patina. This film protects it against further exposure. Also, rolled Copper has a tensile strength from 50,000 to 70,000 pounds per square inch. Tensile strength is the maximum strength a material can stand before breaking.