Text by Mrs Teo

Video clips taken from school video repository

Instructions

1. You have learnt that a mixture is made up

of components not chemically combined
together.
Thus the components can be separated by
several methods.
2. Go through this lesson package on the
various separation techniques.
3. Follow up by reading your textbook.
1. A mixture is made up of components not
chemically combined together, e.g. ink, fizzy
drinks, mineral water, crude oil, air

2. The components of a mixture can be

separated by several methods or techniques.

3. Each separation technique makes use of

differences in the physical properties of the
components
The Different Separation Techniques are
as follows:

• Magnetic attraction
• Filtration
• Evaporation
• Crystallisation
• Distillation
• Chromatography
 Magnetic Attraction

• used to separate magnetic

materials, e.g. iron, steel, nickel,
cobalt from non-magnetic ones in a
mixture
e.g. separating iron filings from
sulphur powder
 Applications of Magnetic Attraction
1.Electromagnets are
used to remove
steel and iron scrap
at the junk-yard.

2. In hospitals, magnets are often used

to remove iron splinters from a
patient’s eyes.
 Using a Separating Funnel
• can be used to separate two
immiscible liquids, such as oil
and water

http://vle.hci.edu.sg/chemistry/beijing/expt%20techniques/lesson5.html
 Filtration
• used to separate
(i) an insoluble solid from a liquid in a solid-liquid
mixture
e.g. sand from a mixture of sand and water

sand)

(water that passes

through filter paper)
 Filtration
• (ii) used to separate an insoluble solid from
a soluble solid
e.g. insoluble calcium carbonate from
soluble copper(II) sulphate
 Filtration

• insoluble solid that remains on the

filter paper - residue

• liquid that passes through- filtrate

(filtrate can be water, any other

solvent, or a solution)
 Applications of Filtration
• hair in our nostrils
trap the dust particles that we breathe in
and allow only clean air to pass through

• air filters in air conditioners

remove solid impurities from air

• oil and air filters in cars

remove solid impurities found in engine
oil and air
 Evaporation to dryness

• used to separate a dissolved solid

(solute) that does not decompose on
heating from a solution
solution,,
e.g. common salt from a salt solution
 Procedure of Evaporating a Solution
1. Pour the solution into an evaporating dish.
2. Heat the solution to dryness to evaporate
away the solvent, leaving behind the solute.
3. Make the Bunsen flame smaller when almost
all the solvent has been evaporated away to
reduce spitting.
 Applications of Evaporation
• drying wet clothes
• drying hair with a hair-dryer
hair-dryer
• obtaining common salt from the sea
 Crystallisation

• process to obtain a solid that

decomposes on heating from its
solution
e.g. sugar crystals from sugar
solution and copper(II) sulfate
crystals from copper(II) sulfate
solution
 Procedure of Crystallisation
1. Pour the solution, e.g. copper (II) sulfate
solution, into an evaporating dish.
2. Heat the solution to evaporate away the solvent
until some solid starts to appear or a saturated
solution is obtained.
3. Leave the solution to cool.
4. On cooling crystals of the solute that can no
longer disssolve in the solution will be deposited
as crystals.
5. Filter the mixture to collect the crystals which
will be the residue.
 Simple Distillation
• process used to separate a pure liquid
(solvent) from a solid-liquid solution
e.g. pure water can be distilled from soft
drinks, sea-water, etc
Distillation
 Simple Distillation

• solution boiled in distilling flask and vapour/steam cooled

and condensed in a Liebig condenser
• condenser consists of jacket of cold water with coldest
water entering bottom of jacket and circulating out
through the top ensuring that coldest part of condenser
is just before the vapour escapes and that the jacket is
completing full of water
• condensed solvent – distillate
• all impurities left in distilling flask
• anti-bumping granules/boiling chips/beads-ensure even
boiling
 Fractional Distillation

• process can be used to separate

miscible liquids with different boiling
points
• liquid with lower boiling point will
vaporise first
e.g. to separate alcohol and water
Fractional Distillation
 Industrial Applications of Fractional Distillation
• oil refineries
- separating the various components of
crude oil or petroleum
Industrial Applications of Fractional Distillation

•industries supplying
oxygen to hospitals,
shipyards, etc

– separating the
components of air
 Paper Chromatography

• process used to separate the different

components in a liquid mixture

For example it can be used

1. to separate the different coloured
components that make up black ink
2. to detect tiny amounts of drugs or
certain other chemicals in urine samples
 Paper Chromatography

1. Apply a small but concentrated

spot of the solution on a piece of
chromatography paper.
2. Suspend the chromatography
paper in a beaker or boiling tube of
solvent with the spot above the
level of the solvent.
Paper Chromatography

3. Separation takes place because

some components of the liquid
mixture travel at a faster pace
than other components on the
paper or any other absorbent
material.
Paper Chromatography

3. As the solvent travels up the

paper, the mixture is separated
into its respective components.
A chromatogram of the separated
components is obtained.

YouTube video clip

 Applications
••analysing
analysing ink dyes for forgery cases
••analysing
analysing food dyes to ensure that
only permitted colourings are used
in foodstuffs

•checking whether pesticides on

vegetables exceed safe levels

••detecting
detecting trace levels of drugs in
urine samples
 Sublimation
- process by which a substance changes from solid
state to vapour state on heating
- e.g of substances which sublime
- iodine
- ammonium chloride

On heating, they do not melt. Iodine changes

into a beautiful violet vapour while ammonium
chloride changes into a white vapour.
They change back into solid crystals on cooling.
 Sublimation

- process used to separate a solid

that sublimes from one that does
not
e.g. iodine or ammonium chloride
from common salt
 Sublimation

When a mixture of a solid that sublimes

and a solid that does not is heated, the
solid that sublimes will turn into a vapour
and separates from the other solid which
remains in the container.
The End
 ACE Suggestions
1. Production of whisky by distillation of barley mash
 ACE Suggestions
2. Commercial Production of sodium chloride by:
(i) Mining

(ii) Evaporation of sea water