PH is an essential amount that shows the chemical conditions of an aqueous solution. The pH can sway biological functions, nutrients, the behaviour of chemicals, and microbial activity.
Considering that, controlling or monitoring the pH of water, soil, beverage, or food products is crucial for various applications. To do this, you will need ph metres to measure the pH level and specify the solution’s basicity or acidity.
Measuring the pH level is important to your people’s everyday lives, although you’ll never hear or see it reported over news shows. With that being said, the following will tell you how pH affects our daily life.
Aquatic Ecosystem and Aquaculture
Too much or too low pH levels in water can harm aquatic lives, like fish. If the water’s pH level is too low, high concentrations of toxic metals like aluminium can get into the water. Also, some chemicals that bear nitrogen become more toxic. These instances can make the fish’s metabolic process become less efficient.
If the pH level in the water drops below 6.5, the fishes and other aquatic life will have a hard time growing. If it drops below five, fishes may stop reproducing, or they may die. This highly affects young aquatic organisms.
Meanwhile, if the pH level in water gets too high, which is more than nine, this would convert most ammonium ions to ammonia, which is toxic to fishes. This can get worse if the temperature of the water rises as well. PH levels between nine and ten may keep the fishes from growing, and more than that will kill the fish.
Agriculture
Soil is a complicated system that requires various elements affected by pH levels, like fungal growth, root growth, availability of nutrients, and microbial activity. Too much acid in the soil can make many of its minerals soluble that can release toxic, like aluminium. Moreover, due to this, some nutrients like molybdenum and phosphorus decrease in soils with a low pH level. On the other hand, if the soil is too basic or alkaline, it will have less copper, zinc, manganese, iron, phosphorus, and boron.
Most plants need a pH range of around 6.0 to 7.0, the range where most nutrients are present. But some plants need soil that is either basic or acidic, like hyacinth that needs 6.5 to 7.5 and blueberries at 4.0 to 6.0.
Farmers often test the pH level or their soils using pH metres to know if they need to alter their soils before planting.
Water Treatment
PH is also important in water treatment, regardless if it is drinking or waste. Drinking water should have a pH level between 6.5 and 8.5. If the drinking water level is too low, it can degrade pipes, allowing toxic metals like lead and copper to get into the water supply. On the other hand, if the pH level is too high, the water will have an unpleasant taste and disinfectant, such as chlorine, will become less effective.
Treating the wastewater also requires the right pH levels to control the microbial or chemical reactions, making the treatment as efficient as possible. Operators need to carefully monitor and regulate pH based on the changes in microbial or chemical conditions.
These are just some of a lot of factors where pH can affect human lives. With that being said, monitoring the pH levels in virtually everything we use or consume is crucial.