Question

How do u determine elements in the drinking water? 1) what the instrument that you will use if u want to determine only ca, Mg ? 2) if u want to determine all elements in the water?

Answer 1

generallly calcium and magnesium in drinking can be determined by the volumetric analysis, but inorder to get accurate values of these metal ions, Flame Atomic Spectrometry is used, Flame atomic absorption spectroscopy(F-AAS) and Flame atomic emission spectroscopy(F-AES) these techniques have sufficient detectibility for metal ions like Na, Ca, Mg,K...

2. selecting an instrumental method depends on the ion to be determined. if we want to determine anions , we can use ionselective methods( fluoride selective electorde for flouride).UV-spectroscopy ( nitrate ,iron, phosphate...)

for OD, BOD,COD it depends on microbial measurments.

for determining cations F-AAS can be used.