Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi,

I'm looking into doing a project on the testing of trihalomethanes in pool water. Do you know of any procedures / experimental methods that may be performed in order to check for trichloromethanes, besides expensive tools?

Thank you.

Other than expensive spectroanalysis methods a reaction method seems like your best path. Try researching Fujiwara reactions.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v2 ... 945a0.html

::micah

Okay, thanks!

I was also wondering. Do you know exactly what type of equipment would be needed in order to conduct such tests for trihalomethanes. I've researched gas chromatographs and mass spectrometers so far.

Thanks again.

This page: http://www.caslab.com/News/testing-for- ... -tthm.html refers to a standard EPA test for doing this. Searching for the test number, I found this page on the same site: http://www.caslab.com/EPA-Method-524_2/ that talks about it in more detail. Also, you can probably find the actual method in some EPA document (there's a CD mentioned in that second page), which would have (extremely) detailed information on how it's done.

The Fujiwara reaction the previous poster mentioned might be a way to detect them that doesn't involve spetroanalysis, but I'm not sure because the one reference I found to it: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_o ... 9d00600e58 implies that even that one involves spectroanalysis. I'm guessing that's because it's sensitive to many different compounds and you still need to isolate the exact ones... however, it might be a cheaper kind of spectroanalysis. That page contains detailed instructions, so it's probably worth checking it out.