preview

Lab Report

Decent Essays

October 17, 18, and 19, samples were collected from multiple sites along the BSR. The class was split into groups, and samples were collected from seven separate locations along the river and WWTP. There was also a sample collected by the S which is located between sites four and five. For each of these sites, there were ten groups from other labs that also collected a sample from the BSR. At site two of the river, the location included multiple sources of possible contamination. A drainage site was located 200 yards upstream, along with a small PVC drainage pipe next to the collection site. Not only was there drainage running into the river, the site was under a bridge, and contained other trash scattered throughout the area. The …show more content…

Once these steps were completed, the cuvette was placed into the spectrophotometer to test for phosphate, nitrate, ammonia, and turbidity. Inside the spectrophotometer, a light was shot through the sample to detect the contaminant. The first ever spectrophotometer was only developed to calculate pH levels and never used wavelength to calculate the abundance of chemicals within a sample. After many years of developing the spectrophotometer, a glass prism was installed. This allowed the spectrophotometer to use light wavelength to calculate the concentration of chemicals within a sample. The light was able to read the preferred contaminant because a reagent attached to each molecule, and the light was reflected back instead of being shot through the sample. This gave the concentration of each contaminant in the sample. In each machine, there was a different light wavelength programmed to shine through the sample to detect the different contaminants. This was done to get an accurate measurement of phosphate, nitrate, and ammonia within the sample. Turbidity was also measured using the spectrophotometer, but there was no reagent added. The turbidity was calculated by testing distilled water first and comparing it to the turbidity of the BSR water. Microscopes were used to look at the different invertebrate organisms within the BSR. There were two stations that included two

Get Access