Testing the hardness of water

Soap solution is used to measure the hardness of rain water, temporarily hard water andsea water. The effect
of boiling both the hard water samples is investigated.
Read our standard health & safety guidance
Lesson organisation
This is a student practical, where a lot of the preparation work has been done beforehand. It could be varied so that
the students watched, or carried out themselves, the preparation of the solutions. This would require using real (or
simulated) sea water, rather than mixing temporarily and permanently hard water. Also the temporarily hard water will
really need to be boiled and cooled (as opposed to distilled water being substituted).
For younger, or less practically experienced students, consider providing the burettes already clamped and full of
soap solution.
Students should bring their conical flasks to the stock bottles of A to E and use a dedicated measuring cylinder for
each solution to obtain 10 cm3. With larger groups, consider telling different groups to start with a different letter.
The work as described will take about 45 minutes.
Apparatus and chemicals
Eye protection
Measuring cylinders (10 cm3), 5 (one for each of A to E below)
Each group of students will need:
Conical flask (100 cm3) 
Bung, to fit the conical flask
Burette and burette stand
Small funnel
Access to:
Soap solution (Highly flammable, Harmful), 75 cm3 per group (see note 1)
A supply of distilled or deionised water for rinsing their flask between experiments
Solutions as below (all are Low hazard), about 20 cm3 per group
A Deionised water – labelled as Rain water
B A 50/50 mixture of temporarily and permanently hard water – labelled as Sea water
C Temporarily hard water (see note 2) – labelled as Temporarily hard water
D Deionised water – labelled as Boiled temporarily hard water
E Permanently hard water diluted 50/50 with deionised water (see note 3) – labelled as Boiled sea water
Technical notes
1 Soap solution in ‘ethanol’ (Industrial Denatured Alcohol, IDA – Refer to CLEAPSS Hazcard 40A) (Highly
flammable, Harmful) can be purchased or made up – Refer to CLEAPSS Recipe card 60
2 Dilute about 150 cm3 of limewater* (Irritant) with an equal volume of distilled water. Pass in carbon dioxide (see
Standard Techniques: Generating, collecting and testing gases), taking care that the gas carries over no acid spray,
whereupon calcium carbonate is soon precipitated. Continue the passage of gas until all the precipitate dissolves,
giving a solution of calcium hydrogencarbonate. This is temporarily hard water.
 * Limewater (calcium hydroxide solution) (Irritant) Refer to CLEAPSS Hazcard 18A and Recipe card 15.
3 Stir a spatula or two of hydrated calcium sulfate (Low hazard, Refer to CLEAPSS Hazcard 19B) into some
deionised water. Swirl to mix, allow to stand, then decant off the clear solution. This is permanently hard water.
Procedure
HEALTH & SAFETY: Wear eye protection throughout.
a Collect about 75 cm3 of soap solution in a small beaker.
b Set up a burette and, using the small funnel, fill it with soap solution.
c Use a measuring cylinder to measure out 10 cm3 of one of the samples of water from the list below into a conical
flask.
A Rain water
B Sea water
C Temporarily hard water
D Boiled temporarily hard water 
E Boiled sea water
d Read the burette. Add 1 cm3 of soap solution to the water in the conical flask. Stopper the flask and shake it. If a
lather appears that lasts for 30 seconds, stop and read the burette.
e If no lather forms, add another 1 cm3 of soap solution. Shake the flask. Repeat the process until a lather forms that
lasts for 30 seconds. Read the burette.
f Rinse out the flask with distilled water. Repeat the experiment with 10 cm3 of another water sample, until you have
tested them all. Make a note of the volumes of soap solution that were needed in each case to produce a lather.
g From your experiments, decide:
• which water samples are ‘soft’ and why
• whether sea water contains permanent hardness, temporary hardness or a mixture of both.
Teaching notes
Sample A will require very little soap solution. This shows that rainwater is soft. It has effectively been distilled (and
like distilled water, it will contain dissolved carbon dioxide but no salts).
Sample D will also require very little soap. This shows that temporarily hard water can be softened by boiling (see
theory below).
The other samples will require more soap but E will require less than B, showing that sea water contains both
temporary and permanent hardness.
The volumes of soap solution needed give a measure of the relative hardness of the various samples. With more able
groups, it might be worth considering that rainwater is completely soft, so that the volume of soap required here is just
the amount required to get a lather, not to overcome hardness. This volume should be subtracted from the other
volumes before the relative hardnesses are compared.
Hard water contains dissolved calcium (or magnesium) salts that react with soap solution to form an insoluble scum
that should be seen as a white cloudiness in the tubes:
calcium salt(aq) + sodium stearate (soap)(aq) → calcium stearate (scum)(s) + sodium salt(aq)
Only when all the calcium ions have been precipitated out as scum will the water lather. Thus the volume of soap
solution measures the amount of hardness.
Temporarily hard water is defined as that which can be softened by boiling. The reactions by which it is made here
are:
Ca(OH)2(aq) + CO2(g) → CaCO3(s) + H2O(l) 
(Calcium carbonate is the ‘milkiness’ that forms when lime water is reacted with carbon dioxide)
CaCO3(s) + CO2(g) + H2O(l) → Ca(HCO3)2(aq) (calcium hydrogencarbonate)
This reaction also occurs when rain water (containing dissolved carbon dioxide) flows over limestone rocks. On
boiling, the reaction is reversed, softening the water:
Ca(HCO3)2(aq) → CaCO3(s) + CO2(g) + H2O(l)
Permanently hard water contains calcium or magnesium salts other than the hydrogencarbonates. These are
unaffected by boiling.
Health & Safety checked, May 2008