Salty Lab

Salinity is the measure and concentration of all the salts dissolved in water. Usually measured in parts per thousand (ppt or ), ocean salinity is 35ppt and the average river water salinity is 0.5ppt or less (University of Rhode Island). Many factors go into salinity, making water salty. To name a few, salinity affects the environment through sediment from rocks washes into the ocean, evaporation of ocean water, and sea ice formation are known to increase the salinity of the ocean (NASA). It can also effect the environment if high concentrations run off to a nearby freshwater source.
Measuring salinity was very difficult in early times. During years 300 and 600, observations of changes in salinity, temperature, and smell helped civilizations
This experiment called for determining the salinity through mass. To determine mass, a small, cleaned watch glass was labeled with the sample number on the bottom using a permanent marker. The watch glass was weighed in grams. 2 mLs of the sodium chloride solution was pipetted into a 10 mL graduated cylinder that would be transferred to the watch glass. After this transfer, the watch glass and sample were reweighed and recorded. To figure out the mass of the solution, the plain watch glass was subtracted from the plain watch glass plus solution. The watch glass was placed in the oven for approximately 20 minutes until the water evaporated, and then it was cooled to room temperature. The watch glass was reweighed. The mass of the sample solution was greater than the salts alone, which indicated that the calculations were reasonable. In addition, the mass of the sample solution with the watch glass was more than the empty watch glass. Using the obtained masses, the salinity for each sample was determined by using this
The barrels that exceeded 50ppt were 3, 10, 11, 13, 17, 18, 22, 24, 26, 30, 31, 39, 42, 45, 47, and 49 (Table 2b). This indicated that these barrels were above the regulated amount. During this same experiment, 26 barrels exceeded the 5% (50ppt) threshold. These were barrels 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 17, 18, 20, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31, 34, 38, 39, 42, 44, 45, 47, 49, and 50 (Table 2a, Table 2b). These barrels were not only above the regulated amount, but they indicate that measuring using a refractomer would be better to use due to its accuracy in recognizing barrels that are above this threshold. Salinity by mass resulted in a more exact manner; however, it is less efficient since it took longer. Contrasted to this, the retest used the most efficient and exact method.
In the “Volatile Organics” experiment, methanol is interpreted as the “unknown waste.” This is displayed through Figure 2, where the retention rate is 1.275 minutes and its peak signal is 1.4 mV. The range for methanol due to its similar voltage and retention time, when comparing Figure 2a and 2b. Because these chemical mixtures contain acetone, methanol, and 2-butanone, the simplest way to determine the volatility of these chemicals is through gas