ABSTRACT The study of this report was to analyse phosphate in a solution
ABSTRACT
The study of this report was to analyse phosphate in a solution. The main objective was to determine the concentration of phosphate in an unknown solution. The level of phosphate in the sample solution was evaluated by molybdenum phosphorus blue method. A spectrophotometer was used with which the absorbance of the solutions provided were read at a particular wavelength of 880 nm where maximum absorption of light occurs during the phosphate test. A graph of absorbance against concentration of the solution is plotted. Using Beer’s Law: (A= ?lc) and line of best fit: (y=0.3726x) , the concentration of phosphate in five different unknown solutions has been found knowing their absorbance at 880 nm wavelength. The concentration of phosphate in the unknown solutions (A, B, C, D, E) was displayed and it should be noted that A, B and E had high concentration of phosphate of 5.77, 2.66 and 2.02 mg/L respectively compared to C (0.757 mg/L) and D (0.773 mg/L). If these high amounts of phosphate were found in water surfaces, this would be a threat to aquatic life and the environment in general. This is why it is important to perform this experiment to analyse the quantity of phosphate in water so that appropriate measures can be taken.
