CEEB 221 INTRODUCTION TO ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

LABORATORY
LABORATORY EXPERIMENT NO. 7
(Chemical Oxygen Demand) COD MEASUREMENT

SECTION: 05

NAME
MUHAMMAD FIKRIL AZIM BIN ABDUL SANI
AMMAR BIN MD DENI
JULIANA BINTI RAZALI

ID
CE094946
CE095821
CE095999

DATE OF LABORATORY SESSION

: 4 DECEMBER 2015

DATE OF REPORT SUBMISSION

: 11 DECEMBER 2015

LAB INSTRUCTOR

: ENCIK NAZIRUL MUBIN BIN ZAHARI

TABLE OF CONTENT
CONTENT

PAGE

Table of Content

Summary/Abstract

Introduction & Objective

Apparatus and Equipment

Procedure

Results

Discussion

5-6

Conclusion

References

Appendix

7-8

Summary/Abstract
Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) is the standard method for
indirect measurement of the amount of pollution (that cannot be oxidized
biologically) in a sample of water.
The chemical oxygen demand test procedure is based on the
chemical decomposition of organic and inorganic contaminants, dissolved
or suspended in water. The result of a chemical oxygen
demand test indicates the amount of water-dissolved oxygen (expressed
as parts per million or milligrams per liter of water) consumed by the
contaminants, during two hours of decomposition from a solution of
boiling potassium dichromate.
The higher the chemical oxygen demand, the higher the amount of
pollution in the test sample. For the contaminants that can be oxidized
biologically, the biological oxygen demand (BOD) method is used.
Introduction
The standard BOD test involves placing a small amount of sample into a
standard BOD bottle of capacity 300ml. Then it is incubated for standard 5
days. The drawback of this method is that it takes 5 days to obtain a
result. Another method is to measure chemical oxygen demand or COD of
the sample.
COD test measures the oxygen required to oxidize all the organic matter
in the sample using acid. It takes about 2 hours to complete the test. The
reagents will react over 120 minutes at 150 C, since it is not easyto
estimate the COD concentration, for initial test, two reagent range are
used ( low range and high range ). Since this is an acid reacted test, it is
very important to follow safety procedure strictly-must wear goggles and
rubber glove and lab coat to prevent accidental spillage.

Objective

To measure the COD of a sample.

Apparatus
The list of apparatus includes:
-

Spectrophotometer

Pipettes

Reagents in a vial

Reactor at 150 C

Distilled water

Procedure
1. A sample of 2 ml was pipette into low range vial, mixed and transfer
to a reactor
2. Distilled water was pipetted 2 mil into the another low range vial,
mix and transfer to a reactor.
3. 2 ml of sample was pipetted into high range vial, mixed and transfer
to a reactor.
4. Distilled water was pipetted 2 mil into the another high range vial,
mix and transfer to a reactor.
5. The vials was heat up for 120 minutes at 150
6. After 120 minutes, the vials was cooled by placing under the
running tap water.
7. Once they are cooled, use spectrophotometer to measure the COD
concentration
8. Choose the right program ( at low range ) at spectrophotometer,
insert vial with distilled water and zeroing. After that, the sample
was inserted and read result on the spectrophotometer.
9. Similarly, change the program to high range and step 8 was
repeated.

Results

Sample

COD reading at low range (mg/L)

27

COD reading at high range

(mg/L)
114

Discussion
The Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) test is commonly used to indirectly measure the
amount of organic compound in water, most applicable of COD determine the amount of
organic pollutants found in surface water such as lakes and rivers, making COD a useful
measure of water quality. It is expressed in milligrams per liter (mg/L), which indicates the
mass of oxygen consumed per liter of solution.
COD is the measurement of the amount of oxygen in water consumed for chemical oxidation
pollutants.
COD determine the quantity of oxygen required to oxidize the organic matter in water or
waste water sample, under specific condition of oxidizing agent, temperature, and time.
This method covers the determination of COD in ground and surface waters, domestic and
industrial waste water. The applicable range is 3-900 mg/l
These are the some errors or mistakes that we have done in the experiment. Sometimes the
sample may be toxic to the bacteria, or seed, that break down the wastes. This is often seen as
decreasing COD results on a sample coinciding with decreasing dilution rates.
Good sampling is necessary if laboratory testing is to be accurate. The sample must be
representative, collected properly, handled carefully and preserved correctly. No matter how
accurate the actual testing is, if the sample is not representative, the results of the test will be
misleading and can lead to poor plant performance. Samples for COD analysis may change
greatly during handling and storage.

Testing should be started as quickly as possible. Sometimes waters, particularly those

containing high concentrations of algae, maybe supersaturated with dissolved oxygen (that
is, due to pure oxygen production by algae during photosynthesis, the water has a higher
concentration of oxygen than normal saturation value). If this is the case, the sample should
be shaken in a partially filled bottle so that all excess oxygen is lost before the COD analysis
takes place. If such a procedure is not carried out, the excess oxygen may be lost during the
COD test leading to an incorrect result.
Therefore, in order to get the accurate and better result, we need to overcome these errors by
following some steps. Firstly, we need to consider the sampling location. Care must be taken
to make sure the sample is representative of the water body from which the sample was
taken. Besides, we need to consider about the sample size. Samples should be taken in a clean
plastic or glass container of sufficient size to provide enough samples for all of the tests and
the quantity of COD bottles that will be incubated for that sampling site. Another
consideration in determining sample size is that the sample must be representative of the
waste stream, and the smaller the sample, the more difficult it is to make sure that it is
representative. Followed by preservation and holding times. In most environmental samples,
bacteria naturally present in a waste stream are consuming oxygen before, during and after
the sample is taken. Therefore, starting the analysis as soon after taking the sample is very
important

Conclusion
After conducting this experiment, we can clearly see that the COD reading
at low range & COD reading at high range showed different readings. In a
conclusion, the value of COD obtained from this experiment for High
Range is 114 mg/L and 27 mg/L for Low Range. The value indicates the
chemical reactivity against the samples, and the result shows that the
objective of this experiment is achieved.

References
Laboratory Manual, CEEB 221 Introduction to Environmental Engineering
Laboratory, 1st draft October 2013 by CKH.
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/chemical-oxygen-demandCOD.html#ixzz3tUmQpxmp

Appendix

High Range and Low Range Chemicals

Placing the mixture of HR and LR with samples in the reactor for 2 hours

Distilled water pipetted into sample

Reading the spectrophotometer