Experiment No - 03

Chemical Oxygen Demand

Submitted By: - Manas Agarwal, MBA Tech. (Chemical), L-030
Aim: To determine the chemical oxygen demand of the given sample of waste
water.
Apparatus: Reflux Apparatus, Reflux condensers, Soxlet heating mantle,
Pipettes, Burettes, Glass beads, etc.
Principle: A sample is refluxed with known amounts of potassium dichromate
and sulphuric acid and the excess dichromate is titrated with ferrous ammonium
sulphate. The amount of oxidisable matter measured as oxygen equivalent is
proportional to the potassium dichromate consumed. The straight chain
compounds are more effectively oxidized in the presence of silver sulphate
reagent. The difficulties caused by chlorine in sample are overcome by adding
mercury sulphate to the sample before refluxing.
Chemicals:
Std. potassium dichromate 0.25 N, Std. Ferrous Ammonium sulphate solution
0.1N, Ferroin Indicator, Conc. Sulphuric Acid - Silver sulphate reagent, Mercury
sulphate.
Procedure:
1. Place 0.4 Gms of mercury sulphate in the reflux flask. Pipette out suitable
volume (20 ml) of the sample into the reflux flask.
2. Pipette out 10 ml of std. potassium dichromate and add several glass beads.
3. Slowly add 30 ml of sulphuric acid silver sulphate reagent through sides of
the conical flask and mix thoroughly during addition.
4. Mix the reflux mixture thoroughly before heat is applied.
5. Connect the flask to the condenser and reflux the mixture for two hours.
6. Cool and wash down the condenser with distilled water.
7. Make the final volume up to 150ml approximately in the same conical flask
before titration.
8. Titrate the excess dichromate with the standard ferrous ammonium sulphate
using 2-3 drops of Ferroin indicator.
9. End point is sharp colour change from blue green to reddish brown even
though the blue green may reappear within minutes.
10. Reflux in the same manner a blank containing distilled water in place of
sample together with reagents.

ObservationSample: Salt Water

Serial.
No.
1

Blank Reading
25.7

Initial Burette
Reading
0

Final Burette
Reading
12.7

Calculation:From the above sample readings we get,

(25.7-12.7) = 13 ml
[130.18000]/20 = 520 mg/lit
Other Observations:-

1
2
3
4
5
6
Graphs:

EXP-03: COD
READINGS
SAMPL
SAMPLE
BLANK
E
Beach Water
25.3
14.8
Vegetable
wash
25.3
21
Mud water
22.7
20
Beach Water
25.7
18.3
Mud water
25.3
21.1
Salt Water
25.7
12.7

COD
(mg / lit)

168
148
112
296
170
520

COD
Mud water
Beach Water
COD

Mud water
Vegetable wash
Beach Water
0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

Results/Inferences: Highest amount of COD is found in Salt Water.

Whereas Mud water has the least COD of all the samples thus we can
conclude that least pollutant was found in the Mud Water.
Questions:1. Why COD is an important parameter for measuring water quality?
The chemical oxygen demand, or COD, is used as a measure of the oxygen equivalent of the
organic matter content of a sample that is susceptible to oxidation by a strong chemical
oxidant. For samples from a specific source, COD can be related empirically to BOD, organic
carbon, or organic matter. The test is useful for monitoring and control after correlation has
been established.
2. Factors responsible for increasing COD content in water?
The higher the chemical oxygen demand, the higher the amount of pollution in the test
sample. Some of the factors are dumping polluted industrial water in environment, due to
which COD content level increases drastically, presence of impurities etc.