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Biochemical Oxygen Demand - The amount of oxygen required in the above cases are measured in terms of biochemical oxygen demand or BOD. It is defined as the amount of oxygen required for the degradation of organic materials (carbonaceous demand) and for the oxidation of inorganic materials such as ferric iron.
BOD also measures the oxygen used to oxidise reduced forms of nitrogen (nitrogenous demand). BOD is normally expressed as mg/l.The BOD procedure can be used to determine the relative oxygen requirements of wastewaters, effluents and polluted waters.