levo

Global Challenges

Producing potable water

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 10 (Chemistry)

Overview

What potable water is and how it differs from pure water, treating fresh water by screening, filtering and sterilising with chlorine, ozone or ultraviolet light, desalination by distillation or reverse osmosis and its cost, how hard ground, salt and waste water are to treat, and taking random, representative samples from a reservoir.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Key term

What is meant by potable water?

Key term

Explain why potable water is not the same as pure water.

Key term

Why is water sterilised before it is supplied to homes?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What is meant by potable water?

    Model answer

    Water that is safe to drink, with low levels of dissolved salts and no harmful microbes.

  2. 2

    Explain why potable water is not the same as pure water.

    Model answer

    Chemically pure water contains only H₂O molecules, whereas potable water still contains dissolved substances at levels that are safe to drink.

  3. 3

    Describe how fresh water from a river or reservoir is treated to make it potable.

    Model answer

    It is passed through a mesh screen and then filtered through beds of sand and gravel to remove solids, and finally sterilised.

  4. 4

    Why is water sterilised before it is supplied to homes?

    Model answer

    To kill the microbes in it that would otherwise cause disease.

  5. 5

    Name three methods used to sterilise water.

    Model answer

    Adding chlorine, treating with ozone, or passing the water under ultraviolet light.

  6. 6

    How can potable water be obtained from sea water?

    Model answer

    By desalination, either by distilling the sea water or by forcing it through a membrane under pressure in reverse osmosis.

Other ways to work this

The same content, four other ways.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

1Closed book
2Open book
3Closed book

The 3-step method, run for you

Answer cold, learn it, then prove it stuck. Levo tracks the jump between your first attempt and your last.

Chemical Reactions
Elements, Compounds and Mixtures
Global Challenges
Monitoring and Controlling Chemical Reactions

Cram a whole paper in one sitting

Sort every topic into what you know and what you do not, then drill only the weak ones.

Values 7.
belowaboveat

Blank Blitz makes facts automatic

Rapid timed gap-fills on the terms and numbers you need to recall without thinking.

AMetals are on the left and in the centre, and non-metals are on the right-hand side.
BKI, because potassium loses one electron and iodine gains one.
CCaCl₂, because a calcium atom loses two electrons and each chlorine atom gains one.

Build It gets the exam shape right

Assemble a full-mark answer from its marking points, in the order an examiner wants them.

Sodium ions give a bright yellow flame colour.
TrueFalse

Test It catches misconceptions

Spot the fault in a statement. The traps are the mistakes students actually make.

721941163128510

Brain Breaks between sessions

Short focus games to reset attention, so the next set lands better than the last.

Every question in Global Challenges, on a schedule.

Attempt a question from memory, write the correct version, then attempt it again. Levo records the jump between your first attempt and your last, and brings each question back on the day you are due to forget it.

Or £46 a year, about £3.83 a month. Cancel anytime.