If the chlorinity of a sample of seawater is 5.5 0/00, what is the salinity in parts per thousand? Round your answer to the nearest tenths place.
Basically, if ANYONE...knows anything about how to do this, or knows the answer or any information that could help me...I have no idea how to do this or where to find it. Thanks guys!
Salinity is a measurement that indicates the amount of salts dissolved in water, usually on a w/w basis.
Concentrations are commonly expressed as parts per thousand (ppt or 0/00). Normal seawater salinity is 34 parts per thousand, meaning that 1,000 grams of seawater contains 34 grams of dissolved salts.
Here you have the a chlorinity of 5.5 g per thousand grams of water (or ppt). If we assume that all the salinity is as sodium chloride then each mole of NaCl, RMM = 23+35.5= 58.5, contains 35.5 of chlorine, or the RMM is 58.5/35.5 greater. Thus to convert the chlorinity to salinity (as NaCl) multiply the 5.5 by 58.5/35.5.
However, this tends to give an underestimate as chlorinity is defined as the total weight of chlorine, bromine and iodine in 1 kg (i.e. ppt) of seawater after all the bromine and iodine have been replaced by chlorine. As chlorine typically accounts for about half of the salinity, salinity is often taken as 1.8 x the chlorinity. You may have a more exact value in your college notes.
To convert chlorinity to salinity, you can use a conversion factor. The conversion factor is approximately 1.80655. You multiply the chlorinity value by this conversion factor to get the salinity in parts per thousand.
In this case, if the chlorinity is 5.5 0/00, you can multiply it by the conversion factor:
5.5 * 1.80655 = 9.935025
Now, you have the salinity in parts per thousand as approximately 9.9 (rounded to the nearest tenth).
You can find this conversion factor and more information about seawater salinity in oceanography textbooks or resources related to seawater analysis.