The University of the South Pacific

School of Biological and Chemical Sciences

Lab 9: Analysis of Chemical Oxygen Demand

1.0 INTRODUCTION
The chemical oxygen demand is referred to as the method of measuring the quality of waste
water and water by estimating the amount of oxygen that is required by bacteria to
chemically decompose organic matter under aerobic conditions. This is a type of
management method common waste water treatment plants where the Chemical Oxygen
Demand Test is conducted to ensure that large amounts of organic matter do not end up in
river streams. This procedure correlates to Biological Oxygen Demand as both involve
organic matter however, in BOD there exists a drawback which is that, upon the Biological
Oxygen Demand procedure, cellulose cannot be consumed by bacteria hence leaving out
some organic matter behind which can potentially harm marine life whereas Chemical
Oxygen Demand breaks up matter completely using chemicals to acidify then oxidize organic
matter, making it a better option in the treatment of waste water (Orellana, Cano-Raya,
López-Gejo and Santos, 2011).
An application of COD native to Fiji is breathalyzer test used by police officials to test for
drunk driver in which the breathalyzer machine uses the same concept whereby the alcohol
reacts with the potassium dichromate solution and turn green in colour, the depth of colour
determines the intoxication levels (Duke, 2020). Another application of COD that is practiced
in waste water treatment methods is to treat organic matter before its disposal into waterways
to prevent the organic matter from using up the oxygen meant for marine life including
phytoplankton if disposed without the appropriate treatment and monitoring conditions
(Meng et al., 2018).
The aim of this experiment was to determine the COD from different samples around the
university and to justify why the COD for every sample differed due to the location it had
been obtained from.

2.0 PROCEDURE
Physics Pond
Two conical flasks were filled with 50cm 3 of the sample which was from the physics pond,
after which they were Added with 5cm 3 of K M n O4 which caused a colour change from rusty
brown to purple. The two samples were then placed on a heating plated which was heated at
100֯ C. The samples were left to heat for an hour and the titration setup was prepared. 50cm 3
Sodium thiosulphate was added to the burette for titrating. After an hour, the samples were
removed and cooled under running tap water for 2-3 minutes. The first sample was then
added with 5cm 3 of KI as well as 10cm3 of H 2 S O4 . The solution was swirled to combine,
then titrated till a color change of yellow was observed. The titration was paused to add few
drops of the starch indicator to the solution, the color changed to a deep blue and the titration
was resumed till the color of the solution had become colorless. The final value of the sodium
thiosulphate was tabulated.
Oxalic Acid
Two conical flasks were filled with 50cm 3 of the sample which was oxalic acid, after which
they were added with 5cm3 of K M n O4 which caused a colour change from rusty brown to
purple. The two samples were then placed on a heating plated which was heated at 100֯ C.
The samples were left to heat for an hour and the titration setup was prepared. 50cm 3Sodium
thiosulphate was added to the burette for titrating. After an hour, the samples were removed
and cooled under running tap water for 2-3 minutes. The first sample was then added with 5
cm 3 of KI as well as 10cm3 of H 2 S O4 . A few drops of the starch indicator was added to the
solution; the color changed to a deep blue and was titrated till the color of the solution had
become colorless. The final value of the sodium thiosulphate was tabulated.
3.0 RESULTS
Table 1: Titre Volumes (cm3)
DDW (Blank) Oxalic Acid Physics Pond Lily Pond CRF Pond
5.45 0.67 4.75 5.00 4.9
5.25 0.85 5.00 5.60 5.4
5.25 0.80 5.35 5.25 4.9
5.317 0.773 5.033 5.283 5.067

Table 2: COD Levels

4.0 DISCUSSION
As seen in table 1, the Oxalic Acid required the least volume of thiosulphate to attain
endpoint and had the highest chemical oxygen demand. The reason for such a result for the
Oxalic Acid is due to the acid being almost purely an organic compound, thus it has a high
chemical demand for oxygen. The lily pond had the lowest chemical oxygen demand and this
is due to it being less organic in nature as compared to the other water samples. The physics
lab pond had a COD of around 4.544ppm and this is due to the presence of aquatic life, thus
it had a significant number of bacteria which required oxygen to decompose waste in the
water. It was seen that the distilled deionized water had 0ppm of chemical oxygen demand,
which was obvious because the water is inorganic and has no demand for oxygen. Further
comparison can be made between the physics pond and the CRF pond, whereby the
difference is only 0.544ppm, indicating that the water bodies have similar aquatic life
composition.
5.0 CONCLUSION
At the end of this experiment, few water samples were analyzed for its chemical oxygen
demand and it was found that oxalic acid, a pure organic compound had the highest chemical
demand for oxygen. The ponds had a significantly low COD and this is due to less bacteria
being present to decompose waste matter as the amount of waste matter in these ponds were
low, so less oxygen is used up by the bacteria, rather most is used by the aquatic life present.
6.0 REFERENCES
Meng, X., Wu, J., Kang, J., Gao, J., Liu, R., Gao, Y., Wang, R., Fan, R., Khoso, S., Sun, W.
and Hu, Y., 2018. Comparison of the reduction of chemical oxygen demand in wastewater
from mineral processing using the coagulation–flocculation, adsorption and Fenton
processes. Minerals Engineering, 128, pp.275-283.
[Link]
Orellana, G., Cano-Raya, C., López-Gejo, J. and Santos, A., 2011. Chemical Oxygen
Demand. Treatise on Water Science, 3, pp.221-261.
[Link]
demand.
[Link]. (2020). Content: How Does the Breathalyzer Work? The Alcohol
Pharmacology Education Partnership. [Link]
breathalyzer-test/content-how-does-the-breathalyzer-work/#:~:text=In%20the
%20Breathalyzer%E2%84%A2%2C%20alcohol,alcohol%20in%20the%20expelled%20air..

7.0 APPENDIX
COD
( a−b ) × N × 8 ×1000
COD=[ ]
Volume of sample cm3
( 5.317−0.773 ) × 0.1× 8 ×1000
¿[ ]
50 cm 3
¿ 72.704 ppm