This was very clear and well done (and appreciated). Perhaps it's the chemist in me, but I like the idea of doing this to check the results against the "test strips" you can buy. I strongly expect they aren't the most accurate (and certainly not very precise given the color numbers). As an added bonus, doing this tells you that if you have a full-house water softener, what you should set it to (I'd recommend setting it to remove most, but not all of the hardness. It will have the best results as your appliances should stop acquiring scale, but it won't feel slimy or taste salty either. Also, all of the chemicals and equipment you used here exist on Amazon and aren't particularly hazardous or expensive, so this is well within the range of the home chemist.

@integral_chemistry

7 ай бұрын

Thank you! And that is actually a really good idea! Before I started this video I picked up a little free test from Lowes, but it seems it requires you to send them a sample and then pay for the results so I haven't actually done anything with it.. I'll definitely look into those test strips and see how they do. And I agree, the shower softener leaves the water tasting slightly salty and almost slimy, I take much longer rinsing off now..

@LFTRnow

7 ай бұрын

@@integral_chemistry You are very welcome! Perhaps there is another interesting video (and more chem) to do here. You could test how much salt (likely NaCl) has been left in your shower water after its hardness "treatment". I suspect it is way too "soft" now. You could also re-check its hardness. BTW, I've not owned one of those in-line units, but I'd expect there might be some way to tweak how strongly it affects the water. There's probably a variable valve to let some water by and if it is any good, it's adjustable. Curious what you bought though, as most in-line shower units are just filters, not softeners, even if they say they are a softener. Anyway, about alternate methods of checking water hardness. In the US (and likely many countries) you can check your water hardness from the county. It isn't perfect, but since everyone is on the same general water service, it will likely be close. You might want to check this for your place to see how close their numbers are to yours (which would be interesting to see as well). As for strips, I searched Amazon for a few terms like "water test strips", "pool test strips", "water hardness strips" etc. and found several that may be of interest and are all fairly cheap. It might be worthwhile to buy all and play with them, as some use similar methods, but might vary in quality, and others use different colors as well as often have other additional tests. Here's what I found that looks interesting: Green/Red type - They get high star ratings, but they look mostly like shades of brown to anyone with red/green colorblindness like me. Might be neat to compare against each other. They were under $6 to under $10 B0C5KBTL57 B08D8KFPV8 B07B31M49N Pool, 6 tests with blue hardness - Pool chem is another really interesting topic in itself, particularly when looked at as a chemist. I found the addition of Boric acid very helpful for example, it basically creates another acid/base buffer to go with the already existing bicarbonate "total alkalinity" buffer, helping to trap the pH in a nice range. Activity of ClO- ("free chlorine") changes with pH. Salt pools use electrolysis of water about 1/10th the salinity of the ocean to generate Cl2 (which becomes ClO-) etc, etc. Anyway, here's the typical 5 tests plus hardness in some strips: B08BKVPH2V 16 in 1 drinking water test, purple hardness, and look at all those fun other tests. Wonder how many of them REALLY work, and how accurate are they? Probably a video or series in itself. There are many such kits out there, typically they are 15-20 tests on a strip. B0BG63JJ3T Purple, wide range - I really thought this one looked nice as it gives a very clear color AND intensity change, making it hard to confuse colors (even for me!) B0BK9LJSY9 Thanks again and hope these are helpful/interesting.

Super cool! And great to see fun amateur projects that also end up real world useful or at least related to day to day :)

@integral_chemistry

7 ай бұрын

Always try my best :) It is best when its something I can relate back to the real world, but for some reason videos like these tend to get the least exposure for some reason

@nomcopterlabs

7 ай бұрын

@@integral_chemistry so far I fail to predict how my videos will do like 80% of the time. I can never guess!

Pretty colours too.

You can counteract some of the effects of hard water by adding sodium citrate during the soapmaking process. The citrate chelates the calcium from your water when you use the soap, which keeps it from forming soap scum.

I titrated calcium with various indicators and eriochrome black T is not bad compared to murexide which changes from one shade of pink to another shade of pink

@integral_chemistry

7 ай бұрын

Oh yeah? Glad to hear it works. I've actually been meaning to do a video on the synthesis of murexide, but it requires uric acid which I'm actually not sure how to make.. So I went ahead and bought some of the black T

@petevenuti7355

7 ай бұрын

What other indicators are there?

@zenongranatnik8370

7 ай бұрын

@@petevenuti7355 Three main are eriochrome black T, murexide and Patton-Reeder indicator. There are also some less used ones like calcein.

@zenongranatnik8370

7 ай бұрын

@@integral_chemistry If you don't know where to get uric acid I'm sure some of Nilered's videos can be *inspiring*

I like the experiment and the idea! Thanks for it. Might try this with my chemistry students this year. :)

Your „Standard“ is pointless. Ca hydroxide has an arbitrary amount of water and CO2 in it. Commercial EDTA is usually pure enough within

@spookywizard4980

7 ай бұрын

Standard calcium carbonate is good as well

I'm studying chemical equilibrium at an analytical chemistry class, and complexation equilibrium is one of them.... I know I suck at math, but at least I know the real world uses of it...

@integral_chemistry

7 ай бұрын

Glad to hear it! And honestly the math gets a lot easier with time, hardest part of math in chemistry is keeping track of conversion factors

@Ryan-lc4bl

7 ай бұрын

@@integral_chemistry I know, and to be honest, I'm lazy even when the formulas are given, lol. Something about the fact that it can't be made any easier without formulas and it just gets more useful for those that know them pisses me off... I used to be good at it until university kicked in, lol.

I would love to see you do a back titration to determine Aluminum ions.

Yayyy 1st one here 🥰 love your videos so much bro

@integral_chemistry

7 ай бұрын

Thank you so much :)

Hi! Chemistry student here, Honestly I’m unsure it would’ve made much, if any difference, but when dissolving a sample in a volumetric flask, it is typically common for the solid to be dissolved in just enough solid before diluting to the etched line. Is there a reason you don’t do this? Or is it completely arbitrary?

@integral_chemistry

7 ай бұрын

Hey! Good question actually. So yeah that is standard practice, and the reason is that its really difficult to agitate or vortex when its full to the etched line, which can make it very difficult to dissolve solids that are more stubborn to dissolve. The potential consequence is when you fill it all the way up before dissolving the solid you might not dissolve 100% of it. EDTA dissolves pretty easily, and I kinda cheat by putting my volumetric flasks in a sonicator for 10 minutes which assures the solid gets 100% dissolved, but if someone was paying you hourly to prep samples they likely wouldn't be happy if you did it my way..

What was the hardness of the water after going through the shower softener though? That was the point of the whole experiment after all.

@integral_chemistry

7 ай бұрын

Very good question lol. Honestly the reason is that I finished filming for this one long before we got the water filter and the setup for this experiment is fairly intensive if you want to get a reliable number, and so I figured all the effort wasn't worth one extra data point.. but it would be a neat thing to test.

@buckstarchaser2376

7 ай бұрын

@@integral_chemistry Ahh... That makes sense. I was confused why you did all that and then omitted... You know... The "thing".

I have the the same analysis on my channel. 👍 To get a clearer and faster color chance for more precise results you should add a small quantity of magnesium complexonate solution before starting the titration.

@integral_chemistry

7 ай бұрын

Oh really? huh I'll have to check yours out. I always find it weird how little attention all my titration videos get, considering titration is one of the few things people seem to actually remember from high school chemistry. Oh well I suppose. Also I don't know if I know what magnesium complexonate is.. does it go by any other names?

@zenongranatnik8370

7 ай бұрын

@@integral_chemistry I guess he's talking about complexons Complexon I - NTA Complexon II - EDTA Complexon III - disodium salt of EDTA Complexon IV - CDTA

@experimental_chemistry

7 ай бұрын

​​​@@zenongranatnik8370 No, it's a magnesium salt solution exactly titrated with EDTA. It's explaned in my video how it influences the displacements to get a clearer color chance. 🙂

@experimental_chemistry

7 ай бұрын

​@@integral_chemistry Most viewers only want to see explosions and fire - literally... 🙄

Interestingly I bought a test kit with exactly this method for $10 - mainly because it is quite a lot more precise than test strips. And I did wonder how it actually works. Although mine turns from green to red, probably a different chemical.

Really soft water feels slimy and impossible to dry off.

@integral_chemistry

7 ай бұрын

Thats true too^^ I spend a lot longer rinsing off now that we got the softener

I love my water full of heptoxides😊😊😊

RO filters mast help for your...

I routinely sell my ice cubes for scrap iron.

All you had to do was boil the water until it evaporates.. if you see white spots, there are chemicals in it.. Right now, your just adding more chemicals.