more urgent questions!!HELP!!! (1 Viewer)

[Leah.Midd]

relating to water hardness...how do water softeners work??
what is the effect of adding a pollutant that contains nutrients to a water system??
why is an algal bloom considered an environmental catastrophe??

 

[Jumbo Cactuar]

softeners would, I imagine, bond strongly forming soluble stable complexes with the cations causing the hardness.

Algal bloom suck. All algal blooms starve the water of oxygen. They also produce toxins, though that depends on which group of algae we are talking about. Google fetches heaps on this stuff.

 

[IcEy]

You can get rid of hardness by using resins and ion-exchange columns. Resins that adsorb Ca and Mg...well, they adsorb them and its all good. Ion exchange columns sweap Na for Mg and Ca.

Algal blooms are considered damaging as they use up all the oxygen in the water. This means that fish, plants die, which means that there's less photosynthesis (therefore even less dissolved oxygen) and also, dead fish means more organic matter. Basically, it just strangles out other life forms.

Excess nutrients, ie. too much phosphates and nitrates lead to excess plant growth, which, when they die, provide organic matter for bacteria, which use up all the oxygen.