Naked Science Forum
General Science => General Science => Topic started by: neilep on 15/08/2005 22:59:01
-
What happens to water when you boil it ?....I mean...why is it good for a settled stomach ? and advised to give to baby ?...it's water isn't it ?...what's the difference between tap water and cold boiled water ?
Thank chums
Neil
xxxx
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Finstagiber.net%2Fsmiliesdotcom%2Fcontrib%2Ficw%2F003.gif&hash=f326f525e3f6c60d4ea3ecbb24d1df2a)Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Finstagiber.net%2Fsmiliesdotcom%2Fcontrib%2Ficw%2F003.gif&hash=f326f525e3f6c60d4ea3ecbb24d1df2a)
-
There are many differences; dissolved gasses are driven off, calcium hardness is reduced, and bacterial and protozoan, and even viral pests are killed, with enough boiling. Bacterial spores are not killed with atmospheric boiling.
So if the water is of suspect quality, boilng can help. I don't know of anything else special.
"F = ma, E = mc^2, and you can't push a string."
-
I might just be echoing gsmollin but when you boil water all the bacteria is killed isn't it? So it will be practically perfectly clean so the baby can't get any infections or anything. I wouldn't have thought normal tap water would be bad though anyway.
----------------------
http://www.simeonie.co.uk
Check it out. Click on the forums
-
So ,subtle the differences may be, the boiled water once cooled is in fact purer and therefore safer for baby and you and me too...
......does it also kill/eliminate the fluoride ?
Thank you
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Finstagiber.net%2Fsmiliesdotcom%2Fcontrib%2Ficw%2F003.gif&hash=f326f525e3f6c60d4ea3ecbb24d1df2a)Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Finstagiber.net%2Fsmiliesdotcom%2Fcontrib%2Ficw%2F003.gif&hash=f326f525e3f6c60d4ea3ecbb24d1df2a)
-
i dont know about the fluoride but in order to kill everything in the water you have to boil it for ten minutes lots of people think boiling water in a kettle kills everything but it dosent
Giggidy Giggidy Goo
The philosopher Q man
-
I would doubt that it would do anything much to the flouride, as it isn't goign to decompose with heat. It is possible a little will be deposited on the element of the kettle, but otherwise not a lot. I would have guessed that the main thing is killing any bacteria in the water that an adult immune system wouldn't even blink over but the undeveloped immune system of a baby may have more problems with....
-
would it depend on what form the fluoride is in? Hydrogen fluoride is gaseous, so if this could form then the fluoride levels would be reduced on boiling. if its in an insoluble form then I assume it would stay in the water.
I agree about the 10 mins boiling - we had a problem with our autoclave at work once where it wasn't at temperature for long enough and bacteria were surviving.
-
Autoclaves should be at 15 psi (1 bar), so the temperature is about 110 C, and kills off bacterial spores normally present on environmental surfaces.
"F = ma, E = mc^2, and you can't push a string."
-
If the flouride in the water was in the form of hydrogen flouride, the flouride conspiracy nutters may well have a point - HF is very nasty stuff as although it isn't a very strong acid it will go through your skin and then catalytically destroy your bones... it is the sort of stuff where an axe is one of the responses to spilling it on yourself!!!
-
Floride being a haloid would combine with a metal to form a salt. And that is the answer: Salt. NaCl or table salt is common enough in the enviroment. If a floride is present, it will change partners and combine with what ever metal produces the most energy, and Sodium (Na) is the most oxidizing metal (highest free energy).
So HF or any other salt of Florine will replace the clorine atom in the NaCl molecule to form a more stable NaF. To protect your teeth, you need a Florine salt that is less active than Calcium. the floride salt then breaks down and reforms as Calcium Floride or CaF.
A layer on your teeth is very resistant to acid attack (decay), though it may stain your teeth a light brown if you get too much.
A friend of mine has such stains and of course NO cavities.
David
-
If I can just butt in here to report that baby luffs the water !....ok..please continue....
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Finstagiber.net%2Fsmiliesdotcom%2Fcontrib%2Ficw%2F003.gif&hash=f326f525e3f6c60d4ea3ecbb24d1df2a)Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Finstagiber.net%2Fsmiliesdotcom%2Fcontrib%2Ficw%2F003.gif&hash=f326f525e3f6c60d4ea3ecbb24d1df2a)
-
i agree with dave shorts that bacteria is probably the main danger but it depends on the baby if a baby is breast fed then the mothers immune system protects the baby for the first three years and the baby can be exposed to many viruses but has the mothers antibodies to fight it
Giggidy Giggidy Goo
The philosopher Q man
-
Hmm, I really should have worked out that HF is acidic, i use HCl enough. lets just hope there isn't any of that in our water then!
so does the pressure itself kill bacteria? just be compressing them? or does it force water into steam or something like that? i was under the impression that if you increase the pressure you increase the temperature.
i was discussing babies immune system today - do babies fed on fomula milk have under-developed immune systems then?
-
quote:
Originally posted by fishytails
i was under the impression that if you increase the pressure you increase the temperature.
Well, I´m not really sure this is the course of action, let´s say it´s a hypothesis.
I think the explanation is in exactly that phrase that you´ve written there [:)], the higher the temperature, the higher the kinetic movement of particles, this high kinetic movement could be bombarding the bacterial cell wall and membrane thus destroying it. If the bacterial cell wall and membrane has holes, the water will move into the bacterium, causing it to swell until it bursts.
:P
-
Pressure and temperature are two different phenomena. They can be changed independently.
PV=nRT
So long as volume (V) and number of particles (n) are constant, then P and T are directly related. This will be more or less true in any strong, enclosed container, like an autoclave. Almost all cells will be killed by either high P or high T, and the temp doesn't even need to be very high for most things. Thus you can kill almost everything just by boiling the water. However, there are some kinds of bacteria and other microbes that form extremely tough resting spores with very thick cell walls. Those little buggers really need to be blasted to kill them.
About Fluorine and Fluoride in water:
Keep in mind that the fluoride ion has very different properties from fluorine atoms in compounds such as HF or F2. Yes, HF is acidic, but that's not its main danger. HF and F2 are among the most powerful oxidizers known. In fact, I think F2 may be the single most powerful oxidizing agent known. These molecules are such powerful oxidizers that they aren't very stable, as they will tend to oxidize everything in sight, with the F becoming reduced to F- (the fluoride ion), which is quite stable. I think it's pretty safe to say that you will never encounter HF in tap water. You will certainly encounter F- in tap water, though, at least in much of the developed world.
When you boil water containing non-volatile solutes (like F-), the steam that comes off is fairly pure water. This means that water escapes the sample, while the solutes remain behind. Therefore, boiling water will tend to make the solutes more concentrated than they were before boiling. An exception is dissolved gases. At higher temperature, gases become less soluble and they escape the solution. Gases dissolved in tap water include O2, N2, and CO2 in small amounts. These will leave the water when you boil it. In many communities, Cl2 (chlorine gas) is also introduced into the water supply; it's purpose is to kill microorganisms. At low concentrations, Cl2 won't hurt you, but it doesn't taste or smell very nice - smells like bleach. You can get rid of the dissolved Cl2 by boiling the water. You can also run the water through a charcoal filter (a la Brita).
But the real reason for boiling water to be given to a baby is to sterilize it. It's really not necessary unless you suspect that your water supply has pathogens living in it. Just a few generations ago, it made a big difference. In most of the developed world, the water supply is now pretty safe, except when contaminations occur. Most public authorities are pretty good at keeping an eye out for that occurence. Still, contaminations do happen, even in the most sophisticated communities. Often, they occur when heavy rains cause sewer systems to overflow or when there are algal blooms in reservoirs. Then, communities are notified not to drink tap water without boiling it thoroughly.
-
i wonder if pressure and temperature really are serperate phenomena when you compress gas it gets cold and when you heat prettymuch anything it expands i would have said pressure and temperature go hand in hand
Giggidy Giggidy Goo
The philosopher Q man
-
Again, PV=nRT. That's the ideal gas law. I think it's one of the most concise mathematical statements ever made. P=pressure, V=volume, n=number of particles, T=absolute temperature. R is the ideal gas constant, a proportionality constant that relates the four variables together.
P and T only go hand in hand if volume and amount are held constant.
If you turn on an electric burner on the stove, the surrounding gas will get hot, but its pressure will be unchanged. In sharkeyandgeorge's example, if you compress a gas, you are correct that you will probably see both T and P increase. However, you can do the same experiment while purposefully holding T constant. What you will see then is that P will increase while T remains constant. Thus, P and T are not inextricably linked.
In the 17th Century, Robert Boyle demonstrated that P and V are inversely related - so long as T is held constant.
In the 19th Century, Jacques Charles demonstrated that T and V are directly related - so long as P is held constant.
Here's a pretty good web site dedicated to the gas laws: http://www.chm.davidson.edu/ChemistryApplets/GasLaws/index.html
-
I give all my jihad children heavy water.
catch me if you can!
-
JC U CONTRADICT YOURSELF AGAIN.
LAST TIME YOU CLAIMED CANCER WAS a thousand diseases.
now you claim thalidomide cures cancer.
how can a single drug cure a thousand diseases?
you make no sense as usual.
As to dillon regarding jokes .i never joked at all about the suspect being shot.read that post again.
my post was designed to show in both cases no need for guns at all.
in fact the suspect could easily have been restrained simply by 2 men grabbing his arms,2 his legs and 1 searching him for strapon explosives.
the taser would would have kep him alive and yeilded info if he had been a bag person.
he was not a bad person police admit.
the person would be alive now if a taser had been used.
i have made an experimental taser from the flash from a £1.50 or $2.18 disposable cameras.
a capacitor (10 uf) is charged to 350 volts.
i have accidently shocked myself and i dont recommend anyone else do this unless they are smart and know what they are doing.
the shock i got was powerful but i suffered no ill effects.
the taser is used for experimental research.
its not a taser really but a high voltage generation device.a taser is better than a knife.
http://forum.aidworkers.net/messages/136/30317.html?1124060335
-
What has the above post got to do with my baby drinking cooled boiled water ?...I suspect you've placed your pst in the wrong thread !!..how you've done that escapes me !...
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Finstagiber.net%2Fsmiliesdotcom%2Fcontrib%2Ficw%2F003.gif&hash=f326f525e3f6c60d4ea3ecbb24d1df2a)Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Finstagiber.net%2Fsmiliesdotcom%2Fcontrib%2Ficw%2F003.gif&hash=f326f525e3f6c60d4ea3ecbb24d1df2a)
-
But it's a nice surreal experience.
-
Re temperature and bacteria
Most bacteria have chosen to have membranes and other internal constiutants made from chemicals that tend to break down at higher temperatures. They can break down by either crosslinking and becoming brittle, or by weak bonds coming apart and breaking down into smaller constituants.
Proteins tend to cross link. Try exposing a little avian ectoplasm to a mild amount of heat on your stove. I generally add some chopped onions and salt and pepper to my eggs (avian ectoplasm is a Yoke son, a yoke).
David
-
What about protein denaturation? One of the things happening to bacteria in boiling water seems to be denaturation of their proteins, much as the boiling of an egg. Is crosslinking also part of this denaturation process?
[:P]
-
quote:
Proteins tend to cross link. Try exposing a little avian ectoplasm to a mild amount of heat on your stove. I generally add some chopped onions and salt and pepper to my eggs (avian ectoplasm is a Yoke son, a yoke).
Er, sorry, I read it too fast before I asked the question, it seems that you already answered it.
Isn´t this cross linking and becoming brittle the effect of higher kinetic motion of molecules? (sorry people, higher kinetic motion actually means molecules moving around faster), or is my idea on this subject flawed?
[:P]
-
biomed - you have the right idea, because "higher kinetic motion of molecules" is the definition of higher temperature.
-
Thank you finchbeak, and thank you on the comment describing the equation of state. You´re absolutely right pointing our attention on the relationship of P and T not being intricately depending on one another. Boy, the things that a layman forgets.
In the boiling water example, let´s follow what happens. First, the heat energy from the stove is conducted through the bottom of the pan, making the water molecules move around faster (as finchbeak explained, the water temperature rises), we can name this higher kinetic energy. Because of this higher kinetic energy, water can escape the pan in both gaseous and liquid form. This means that the amount of substance (in chemistry denoted as n) decreases. So, if we look at finchbeaks example above, n*R*T isn´t constant, in fact it decreases because of the variable n. Most pure substances, such as water tend to change from liquid into gaseous form at a constant temperature. for water, this is at T=373.2K(100 degrees centigrade). Now, look closely at the pan, it´s fully open to it´s surroundings, here you can conclude that the pressure must be equal to the atmosphere. There, P and T arent intricately related.
Now, if you put a lid on the pan, that doesn´t let out any gas, the kinetic energy of the water molecules bounce off at the walls with higher speeds. (correct me if I´m wrong) This means that in a given time interval of let´s say one second, more mass units bounce off at the same area than when at lower temperature, thus when we look at the mathematical definition of pressure, p=F/A, we might conclude that p has increased when heated. n didn´t change, because of the lid.
Now, I´m not really sure if this is correct, but I imagined it this way, with help of my textbooks.
[:P]
-
quote:
Originally posted by Bin Laden
I give all my jihad children heavy water.
catch me if you can!
You are killing all of your jihad children.
"F = ma, E = mc^2, and you can't push a string."
-
Back on topic, I'm pretty sure it all comes down to pathogens in the water supply, and boiling used to be good advice, since it will kill most bacteria. However, it does not kill all protozoans, especially cryptosporidian oocysyts and sporozoites. These tough organisms are the ones most likely to escape a public super-chlorination system. To kill crypto, you should be using a special water filter. Here's a page about water filtration, and it has a link to the UK water inspectorate. Of course, they are selling, but crypto is the most serious water borne threat to the newborn.
http://www.1x1x1.co.uk/water/filtration/water_biology.htm
"F = ma, E = mc^2, and you can't push a string."
-
quote:
Originally posted by gsmollin
However, it does not kill all protozoans, especially cryptosporidian oocysyts and sporozoites. These tough organisms are the ones most likely to escape a public super-chlorination system. To kill crypto, you should be using a special water filter. Here's a page about water filtration, and it has a link to the UK water inspectorate. Of course, they are selling, but crypto is the most serious water borne threat to the newborn.
http://www.1x1x1.co.uk/water/filtration/water_biology.htm
"F = ma, E = mc^2, and you can't push a string."
Thank you gsmollin, and the link is appreciated...however, I'm a dab hand with a pair of tweezers and a magnifying glass and I reckon I've got the cryptosporidian oocysyts and sporozoites under control !![:D]
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Finstagiber.net%2Fsmiliesdotcom%2Fcontrib%2Ficw%2F003.gif&hash=f326f525e3f6c60d4ea3ecbb24d1df2a)Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Finstagiber.net%2Fsmiliesdotcom%2Fcontrib%2Ficw%2F003.gif&hash=f326f525e3f6c60d4ea3ecbb24d1df2a)