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    Hard Water Free Content

    Uploaded by

    Randolph Woodroffe
    Hard water contains dissolved calcium and magnesium compounds such as magnesium hydrogen carbonate, calcium hydrogen carbonate, magnesium sulfate, and calcium sulfate. When hard water reacts with soap, it forms an insoluble compound called calcium stearate, or "scum," which prevents the soap from forming a lather. To test the hardness of water samples, one could use soap as an indicator - the amount of lather/bubbles formed would depend on the amount of calcium and magnesium ions in the water, with less lather indicating harder water.

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    Hard Water Free Content

    Uploaded by

    Randolph Woodroffe
    27 views6 pages
    Hard water contains dissolved calcium and magnesium compounds such as magnesium hydrogen carbonate, calcium hydrogen carbonate, magnesium sulfate, and calcium sulfate. When hard water reacts with soap, it forms an insoluble compound called calcium stearate, or "scum," which prevents the soap from forming a lather. To test the hardness of water samples, one could use soap as an indicator - the amount of lather/bubbles formed would depend on the amount of calcium and magnesium ions in the water, with less lather indicating harder water.

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    Hard water contains dissolved calcium and magnesium compounds such as magnesium hydrogen carbonate, calcium hydrogen carbonate, magnesium sulfate, and calcium sulfate. When hard water reacts with soap, it forms an insoluble compound called calcium stearate, or "scum," which prevents the soap from forming a lather. To test the hardness of water samples, one could use soap as an indicator - the amount of lather/bubbles formed would depend on the amount of calcium and magnesium ions in the water, with less lather indicating harder water.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as ppt, pdf, or txt
    27 views6 pages

    Hard Water Free Content

    Uploaded by

    Randolph Woodroffe
    Hard water contains dissolved calcium and magnesium compounds such as magnesium hydrogen carbonate, calcium hydrogen carbonate, magnesium sulfate, and calcium sulfate. When hard water reacts with soap, it forms an insoluble compound called calcium stearate, or "scum," which prevents the soap from forming a lather. To test the hardness of water samples, one could use soap as an indicator - the amount of lather/bubbles formed would depend on the amount of calcium and magnesium ions in the water, with less lather indicating harder water.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    You are on page 1of 6

    Hard Water

    1 of 6 © Boardworks Ltd 2012


    What is hard water?
    Hard water contains dissolved calcium and magnesium
    compounds such as:

     magnesium hydrogen carbonate [Mg(HCO3)2]


     calcium hydrogen carbonate [Ca(HCO3)2]
     magnesium sulfate [MgSO4]
     calcium sulfate [CaSO4]
    Hard water can be temporary or permanent.
    Temporary hard water contains
    magnesium hydrogen carbonate and
    calcium hydrogen carbonate.
    Permanent hard water contains
    magnesium sulfate and calcium sulfate.

    2 of 6 © Boardworks Ltd 2012


    Hard and soft water in the UK

    3 of 6 © Boardworks Ltd 2012


    Hard water and soap
    One of the chemicals in soap is sodium stearate.

    The dissolved calcium and magnesium compounds


    in hard water react with sodium stearate to form a
    solid called calcium stearate (or ‘scum’).

    Soap ‘scum’ is formed by the reaction:

    sodium calcium calcium sodium


    + hydrogen  + hydrogen
    stearate stearate
    carbonate carbonate
    2C17H35COONa (s) + Ca(HCO3)2 (aq)  (C17H35COO)2Ca (s) + 2NaHCO3 (aq)

    The soap will only form a lather when all of the dissolved
    calcium hydrogen carbonate in the water has reacted.

    4 of 6 © Boardworks Ltd 2012


    Planning to test water hardness
    Water hardness can affect how suitable a water supply is
    for different uses, like washing and use in heating systems.
    How could you use soap to investigate the hardness of
    samples of water from different sources?

     What would be the


    independent variable?
     What would be the
    dependent variable?
     What variables would you
    need to control?
     What method would you use?

    5 of 6 © Boardworks Ltd 2012


    Testing hard water with soap

    6 of 6 © Boardworks Ltd 2012

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