[Frolex]

For a science project my chemistry class will go to a water park to do some testing in a more relaxed and fun way. I instantly thought of the South Park episode in which the boys go to a water park where the amount of urine in the water reaches a certain amount that ultimately results in the urine taking over the water.
Eventhough that obviously was a joke, there is no denying that there is some truth to the fact that there is urine present in the water of public water parks. Me and my group want to find out exactly how much and how the park can make sure this level does not exceed a certain point.

So my question is, how would one go about measuring the amount of urine dissolved in a sample of water? I was thinking about pH levels, and found that urine has a pH level ranging from 6.0 to 6.9. Maybe that could help somehow?


The planning session is in two days so immediate response would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

[Borek]

pH won't work, probably the closest that makes sense is to test for urea levels.

[Frolex]

pH won't work, probably the closest that makes sense is to test for urea levels.

Yes, this would make sense since urea is one of the main components of urine. But how would one measure the urea level of a sample? its density is greater than 1, so it should sink, but is it dissolved in the water? would boiling the water isolate the urea?

[Borek]

Dissolved, its density doesn't matter here.

[Frolex]

Dissolved, its density doesn't matter here.

so then how do you measure the urea level?

[408]

Dissolved, its density doesn't matter here.

so then how do you measure the urea level?

Simple, the peeH 

 

Probably just evap a sample and get a mass of solid, the percentage of which is urea can be determined by GC or something

[Frolex]

Dissolved, its density doesn't matter here.

so then how do you measure the urea level?

Simple, the peeH 

 

Probably just evap a sample and get a mass of solid, the percentage of which is urea can be determined by GC or something

The pH test of the sample showed that the water is all pee, no H!!
haha what a brilliant episode.
when evaporating the pool water, wont there be other solid remainders other than the urea? What is the pool water actually made of:P? i rememeber learning that the"chlorine" in pools is actually not cl, but another molecule or something, maybe that will get left behind aswell and make the data irrelevant

[Borek]

I wonder if urea will not decompose during boiling. Residue (after boiling) will contain a lot of salts - how much and of what exact composition depends on the water hardness and source. There are known methods for determining urea concentrations, but I doubt they will be easy to do without specialized hardware. First one that I googled is here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC480247/