EVT 577:

WASTEWATER TECHNOLOGY

EXEPERIMENT 3:
CHEMICAL OXYGEN DEMANDS (COD)

NAME:
MOHAMMAD SYAHIRUL AIMAN BIN JUSOH (2016551937)
CHE MOHAMMAD FAKHRUL HAFIZ BIN CHE MOHD
SHAMSHUDIN (2016317645)
MUHAMMAD NUAIM RIFQI BIN ROSLAILI (2016535235)
SALAHUDIN BIN AB AZIT (2016571803)
MUHAMMAD HAZIQ BIN ABD RAHIM (2016728625)

LECTURER:
FAZRUL RAZMAN SULAIMAN
OBJECTIVE:

To determine the chemical oxygen demand (COD) in the pond and stream.

RESULTS:

Sample / Blank Volume (mL) COD (mg/L) Average COD (mg/L)

Pond 1 2 130 419

Pond 2 2 135
Pond 3 2 87
Pond 4 2 67
River 1 2 -8 31
River2 2 -10
River3 2 31
River4 2 -12

CALCULATIONS:

COD actual = {reading from spectrophotometer} X 10*

*10 = DCF = dilution correction factor

Pond 1

130 x 10* = 1300mg/L

Pond 2

135 x 10* = 1350 mg/L

Pond 3

87 x 10* = 870mg/L

Pond 4

67 x 10* = 670mg/L

River 1

-0.8 x 10* = -80 mg/L

River 2
-10 x 10* = -100 mg/L

River 3

31 x 10* = 310 mg/L

River 4

-12 x 10* = -120 mg/L

QUESTION:

Why COD concentration is higher than BOD concentration?

BOD (Biological Oxygen Demand) value in polluted water is normally higher than the fresh
water. Increased BOD can be resulted due to domestic sewage, petroleum residues and wastes of
animals and crops.

COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand) is the amount of oxygen required to degenerate all potion in a
chemical way. In general, with chemical destruction you can remove more pollution than with
the biological way.

As BOD is only a measurement of consumed oxygen by aquatic microorganisms to decompose

or oxidize organic matter and COD refers the requirement of dissolved oxygen for the oxidation
of organic and inorganic constituents both. Hence COD must be greater than BOD.

DISCUSSION
COD (chemical oxygen demand) has historically been considered to be an estimate of
organic matter, and though this is no longer the case, for most kinds of water it is still a fair
approximation (Kylefors et al, 2003). Chemical oxygen demand (COD) test was developed in
order to substantially reduce the time required to estimate the ultimate oxygen demand of a
wastewater (Jirka and Carter, 1975). This test is used widely to estimate the amount organic
matter in wastewater. It is a measurement of the oxygen similar of the materials present in the
wastewater that are subject to oxidation by a strong chemical oxidant. When wastewater contains
only readily available organic bacterial food and no toxic matter, the COD test results provide a
good estimate of BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand) value. The COD test only takes 2 hours
to obtain the results. After the sample (2 ml) and reagents put inside the vial, the solution was
preheated in the COD preheated in the COD reactor for two hours to increase the rate of the
reaction.

The COD reading (mg/L) obtained for pond are (P1=130), (P2=135), (P3=87) and
(P4=67) while for stream are (R1= -8mg/L), (R2= -10mg/L), (R3= 31mg/L) and (R4= -12mg/L).
The results for the stream are under range. This is may be due to the COD digestion reagent vials
type use was high range. Hence, COD value lower than 20 mg/L cannot be detected.

Parameter Classes
I II III IV V
COD Value <10 10–25 25-50 50-100 >100
Table 2: Classes in Malaysian Water Quality Index for Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD)

There are some precautions should be alert in this experiment. Firstly, samples must be
mixed well and measured quickly to avoid settling errors. The wastewater samples need to be
shaken before pipette it for the dilution. The spectrophotometer must be warmed up and zero
using the reagent blank. If the volume of deionized water added to the reagent blank is not 2.0
mL, the color of the reagent blank will be either lighter or darker than expected.

CONCLUSION:
Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) is commonly used to indirectly measure the amount of
organic compound in water. Most applications of COD determine the amount of organic
pollutants found in surface water like lakes and rivers, making COD is a useful measure of water
quality. COD is also expressed in mg/L which indicates the mass of oxygen consumed per litre
solution. So, COD value from the pond is higher compared to COD value from the rivers.
 REFERENCES

Jirka, A. M., & Carter, M. J. (1975). Micro semiautomated analysis of surface and waste waters
for chemical oxygen demand. Analytical chemistry, 47(8), 1397-1402.

Kylefors, K., Ecke, H., & Lagerkvist, A. (2003). Accuracy of COD test for landfill leachates.
Water, Air, and Soil Pollution, 146(1-4), 153-169.

WEPA (Water Environtment Partnership in Asia). (2006). Classes in Malaysian Water Quality
Index for Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD). Accessed from:

http://www.wepa-db.net/policies/law/malaysia/eq_surface.html