Talk:Biochemical oxygen demand

message: UK uses BOD5, Am I right in thinking that Austrailia uses a BOD30 to reflect the residence time in Austrailian rivers?
:I don't know about Australia, but in the US, BOD30 is frequently used to gather more information on the wastewater being analyzed, often with dissolved oxygen (DO) graphed against time. It becomes burdensome for routine use because of needing 5 or 6 times as much incubator space for a month's daily samples than BOD5. -- WCFrancis 18:26, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  BOD<sub>30</sub> in Australia? 

message: The following 2 paragraphs used to be in the article, but they were so poorly intregrated into the article that it made the article very confusing to read.  These paragraphs are preserved here so that someone can re-integrate the worthwhile bits of them:
However, the act itself without proper technical measures could not stop and prevent further pollution of the rivers. From this point of view, the formation of the Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal in 1898 can be understood as the milestone in the development of wastewater treatment technology. This commission co-ordinated the activities leading to better understanding of factors affecting the water quality in receiving waters and to evaluation of new treatment procedures. One of the best known outputs of the commission is the BOD5 test recommended in 1908. The famous "30:20 + full nitrification" effluent standard was adopted in 1912 which was a great challenge for the development of wastewater treatment processes capable of meeting this standard.
The Royal Commission on River Pollution  which was established in 1865  and the formation of the Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal in 1898 led to the selection in 1908 of BOD5 as the definitive test for organic pollution of rivers. Five days was chosen as an appropriate test period because this is supposedly the longest time that river water takes to travel from source to estuary in the UK. In 1912 the commission also set a standard of 30 ppm BOD5 as the maximum concentration of permitted in sewage works discharging to rivers provided that there was at least an 8:1 dilution available at dry weather flow. This was contained in the famous 30:20 +full nitrification standard which was used as a yardstick in the UK up to the 1970s for sewage works efluent standard.
ike9898 13:39, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)
:This is good historical information and should not be lost. I'll give it some thought. Maybe a subheading on the historical perspective. -- WCFrancis 18:30, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Done - only one year late ! Velela 14:26, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I thought this was good historical information, too, and was somehow helpful in getting this whole page, which is rather hard. BradyDale (talk) 19:53, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  these 2 paragraphs don't fit 

message: Additional info on Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and Total Organic Carbon (TOC) being used as substitutes should also be included. -- WCFrancis 18:30, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other info 

message: There should be some discussion of standards used in BOD.  That is the glucose-glutamic acid standard used to check DI water quality.
: On a related noted... I couldn't follow the part about UK versus US standards. Mainly, which is more rigid? Which goes farther? I can't tell. BradyDale (talk) 19:55, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Standard 

message: How can modern pristine waters have a BOD of 1 or less when the Limit of Detection is 2 mg/L???
Because the limit of detection relates to conventional run-of-the-mill analysis. By using larger volumes, more precise methodologies and more replicates it is possible to extend the limit of detection to below the 1 mg/l level. It is always worth bearing in mind the statistical as well as the biological and chemical limitations of tests such as BOD.   Velela 14:17, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please correct pristine water reference 

message: I revert a copyvio of this page. Mateus Hidalgo 02:15, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyvio 

message: There is no information about which bottle should be used when a standard test is held. 300ml BOD bottle, right? Raymond "Giggs" Ko 07:01, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The BOD test is not bottle dependent, many labs use a 500ml bottle for the samples under test if using a titration method for determination or as small as 50ml if using an electronic DO probe, but the size of the bottle is only a function of practicality and space. Use of a too small bottle might lead to more variable results and a too large bottle might not fit in the incubator. Velela (talk) 10:04, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  BOD bottle 

message: Could the BOD of a diluted sample be calculated by (Initial DO-Final DO)/Decimal fraction of the sample? Raymond "Giggs" Ko 07:08, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No. Sample size is not relevant.  E.g. if original sample is diluted 1:10 with de-ionized water and has a concentration of 9 mg/l at the start and has a concentration of 5 mg/l at the end of 5 days  and the control shows a drop of 1 mg/l over the same period , then the BOD of the water in the original sample  = (9-(5-1)) *10 = 50 mg/l.  Velela (talk) 10:09, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

text: Yes you are right - one set of parentheses missing (now corrected above) - the result is still the same!  Velela  Velela Talk   17:19, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Calculation of BOD 

message: This section is misleading and vague. First, it doesn't claim what these typical BOD5 values are for (though it would seem that we are discussing municipal sewage), nor does it note that we are discussing BOD5. It neglects whether these are carbonaceous or total BOD values, nor does it source the typical BOD5 values (they aren't from the Standard Methods 21st Edition, anyway). Moreover, it would be quite a pristine river to have 1mg/L BOD5; there are natural waters with 15mg/L mean BOD5 values. There is far too much variance for this even to be considered. It would be like claiming a specific sodium content for water: the dead sea and a freshwater lake will not be even remotely comparable.
Worse yet, the BOD5 is a qualitative test -- a fact neglected in the article. This is an essential detail if any value can be assigned to these "typical" BOD5 values. I'm going to get around to cleaning this article up a bit, but I'd like some kind of sourcing on these and a reason not to just outright remove the section. 128.61.116.137 (talk) 20:00, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I wrote the original text based on 30 experience managing the quality of the aquatic environment. Somebody else appended the reference, but it is a reference I don't have access to. I am sure that I can find a valid reference for these figures - it may take a while though...  Velella  Velella Talk   13:20, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Typical BOD5 values 

message: This article is very well written in terms of the scientific methodology for testing BOD (similar to the CBOD) but I think there are some issues with nuance, and a lack of general info on BOD. 
While those of us in water quality often refer to BOD/CBOD(5) as tests or methods, what we really are referring to are the methods for assessing BOD/CBOD. BOD is a measure of the demand for oxygen resulting from biochemical processes. There are test to measure it, but it is not the tests. This shoudl be made clear. The way the lead/content is written, it states that BOD is the method/test. We should really start out with a basic description of what BOD is, why it's an important measure, etc, and then spend some time talking about how it's measured. 
The EPA gives a good example here (3/4 of the way down page) http://water.epa.gov/type/rsl/monitoring/vms52.cfm
The page currently reads as if you were talking about eggs, but only talked about how to cook them. There's a lot more to the subject:) I will try to get back and add detail, but please, in the mean time, I hope someone else will do so as well.
Jbower47 (talk) 22:10, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Focused too much on analytical methods 

message: Why is the language sidebar of the article missing? There are quite a few languages that have an article about BOD (العربية, Català, Čeština, Español, Eesti, Euskara, فارسی, Français, Galego, Bahasa Indonesia, Italiano, 日本語, 한국어, Nederlands, Norsk nynorsk, Norsk bokmål, Polski, Português, Русский, Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски, Српски / srpski, Svenska, தமிழ், Türkçe, Tiếng Việt, 中文). In those articles the english article does also miss in the sidebar.--Nix schlecht (talk) 10:22, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Language Sidebar of Article Missing 

message: I think the use of BOD to mean Biological Oxygen Demand [as in Elisabeth v. Munch's excellent powerpoint presentation: Characteristics of Urine, Faeces and Grey Water] and Biochemical Oxygen Demand [which is how BOD is defined here] needs tidying up. My understanding is that Biochemical OD is the sum of Biological OD and Chemical OD. Biological OD is due to the action of bacteria whilst Chemical OD is due to the oxidation of chemicals without the involvement of living organisms. AndrewJohnWarren (talk) 09:49, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: No "Biochemical " is correct and it does not refer to the sum of biological and chemical ODs.  Please do the mathematical addition for results from any sample of water to demonstrate the fallacy of that  belief. COD typically includes the whole of BOD plus the oxygen demand of materials incapable of biochemical oxidation. Summing them would make no sense.  Velella  Velella Talk   09:59, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

text: No, it's just two different terms used for the same thing: biological oxygen demand is the same as biochemical oxygen demand. I actually would always call it biological oxygen demand. EvMsmile (talk) 13:30, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: The term was coined by the Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal in setting out the 30:20 standard. Whilst we may all agree that the word "biological" better conveys the meaning, "biochemical" is the word used in the historical precedent. Regards 121.75.9.206 (talk) 20:31, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is biological oxygen demand the same as biochemical oxygen demand?

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: :Carbonaceous biochemical oxygen demand covers much of the same ground as this article albeit from a specific US viewpoint and also largely in the mode of a manual of how to do BOD tests. Wikipedia explicitly is not a manual and  all the relevant material is already present in this article . This article also substantially pre-dates the carbonaceous article. This article was started in 2004 and the carbonaceous one in 2010.  Velella  Velella Talk   22:32, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Merged in December 2019.  Velella  Velella Talk   14:36, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge of Carbonaceous biochemical oxygen demand here

message: you need to explain what DO stands for its mentioned many times but not explained  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.109.61.206 (talk) 14:18, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: It is Dissolved Oxygen. The abbreviation was explicitly explained in three separate sections of the article but, just in case reading past the intro is difficult, I have added yet one more to the lede.  Velella  Velella Talk   14:35, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  what is DO production 

message: A short description needs to be short. The guideline at Wikipedia:SDSHORT talks about a target of 40 characters. The current SD tries to define the topic but is being flagged as excessively long at 142 characters. The guidelines at Wikipedia:SDNOTDEF are clear that a definition is not needed, just a statement that allows viewers to distinguish this topic from other topics that seem to have a similar title. The question then, is how to create a simple SD that approaches the 40 character target. After some careful reading of the article, I chose  which seemed to meet the need – there is no need in a SD to says why the metric exists or how it is used. Please consider what SD would instead serve to distinguish this topic from others while being technically correct and short — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 20:18, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: The reverted description would have been appropriate for the different dissolved oxygen test, but this test is a measure of the oxygen needed to remove organics from water. Albert Einstein said: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” Does the 40-character limit justify substituting  for oxygen and  for water, or is this a case where WP:Iar might apply? 21:25, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: 43 is near enough! A tidy short summary is often a real challenge — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 21:45, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Short description