I once had a 290 gallon hot tub. A common buffer chemical is sodium bicarbonate.
ID: 725733 • Letter: I
Question
I once had a 290 gallon hot tub. A common buffer chemical is sodium bicarbonate.Suppose the buffer capacity had been depleted over a period of month. The pH is now 6.5. Little Taylor
visits the pool and decides to pee in it. Assume that his urine is at a pH of 4.0 and that over the course
of a day, he excretes a total of 0.660 gallons of his urine.
The pH of the pool after Taylor goes home for the day is about 6.1.
Assume that you have to adjust the pH back to 7.2. What and how much would you use to bring the pH back?
Explanation / Answer
Sodium bicarbonate or sodium hydrogen carbonate is the chemical compound with the formula NaHCO3. Sodium bicarbonate is a white solid that is crystalline but often appears as a fine powder. It has a slightly salty, alkaline taste resembling that of washing soda (sodium carbonate). The natural mineral form is nahcolite. It is a component of the mineral natron and is found dissolved in many mineral springs. Since it has long been known and is widely used, the salt has many related names such as baking soda, bread soda, cooking soda, and bicarbonate of soda. In colloquial usage, its name is shortened to sodium bicarb, bicarb soda, or simply bicarb. The word saleratus, from Latin sal æratus meaning aerated salt, was widely used in the 19th century for both sodium bicarbonate and potassium bicarbonate. The term has now fallen out of common usage.