SEPARATING TECHNIQUES

Needed within Chemistry to separate wanted chemicals etc

 • Differences in behaviour, physical properties or chemical
properties is exploited, and used to separate chemicals
Choice of from each other.
• Chemical properties involve carrying out some CHEMICAL
separating REACTIONS to achieve the separation

techniques • In this unit, we look at achieving separation by using

differences in PHYSICAL PROPERTIES, (no chemical
reactions involved).
• Obviously the choice of technique will have to be different
with different mixtures etc.
 • Miscible liquids are liquids that mix with each other, such
as water and alcohol, they make one solution when mixed
Separation of together.
• Imiscible liquids are liquids that do not mix together,
IMMISCIBLE instead they form different layers when in the same
container, such as oil and water.
liquids • Oil is less dense than water so it floats on water, if we have
a mixture of the two. How could we separate such a
solution??
• ANSWER- use a separating funnel
SEPARATIN
G FUNNEL
SOLUTIONS
• Whenever something is
dissolved into water, the
water is the SOLVENT and the
chemical that is dissolved is
the SOLUTE, altogether the
solvent and solute make the
SOLUTION.
 Separating • To separate the dissolved solute from the solvent water,
then the water can easily be boiled away to leave behind
the SOLUTE crystals of the solute.

from a • This method is called CRYSTALLISATION, so lets consider

what we would do to separate the SALT from salty
solution water…….
• Finally we are left with larger crystals if they form slowly, by
allowing the water to evaporate away slowly. Alternatively
we can quicky boil away the water with a roaring Bunsen
flame but then the crystals are very small.
 • With salty water, consider what you might do if you wanted
Separating the the solvent instead . So how would we get water from salty
water??
solvent from a • Then, the technique needed is SIMPLE DISTILLATION. This
involves boiling off the water, turning it to steam, and then
solution cooling this steam down back into liquid water.
• The apparatus needed to CONDENSE the steam and turn it
to water is a Liebig condenser
APPARATUS SETUP FOR SIMPLE
DISTILLATION
SEPARATING MISCIBLE LIQUIDS
• Consider the case of a mixture of two liquids that have mixed
together, such as water and alcohol.

• Boiling Point of alcohol = 78 oC

• Boiling point of water = 100 oC

• Simple distillation would give POOR separation, as when the alcohol

boils it carries with it some water and so we get water contamination
the collected alcohol. Solution is to use a FRACTIONATING COLUMN!
Then the technique is called, FRACTIONAL DISTILLATION.
EXPLAININ • Heat up the water/alcohol mixture with a Bunsen.
G
• As the temperature increases to 78oC, the alcohol
FRACTION will start to boil, turn into alcohol gas, (vapour) and
AL rise up the apparatus.
DISTILLATI • Unfortunately as it boils it carries some drops of
ON water upward with itself.
• The column gives time for these drops of water to
drip back down into the flask, and allows the 78oC
alcohol gas to continue going upwards.
• Further up the column we go, the PURER is the
alcohol, until at the top of the column, we have
around 99% alcohol contaminated with 1% water.
This makes its way down the LEIBIG CONDENSER,
where alcohol gas is cooled (CONDENSED) back into
alcohol liquid to be collected as fairly pure alcohol.
CHROMATOGRAPHY
• This is a very useful technique for separating chemicals from each other, as chemicals travel at different
speeds across filter paper etc.
• Chromatography always involves some chemical travelling over or through (mobile phase) a stationary
medium ( stationary phase)
• In school the stationary phase is usually filter paper, and the mobile phase is water, which when added
travels across the filter paper.
• As the water moves, it will carry a mixture along with itself; and within that mixture the individual
chemicals will travel at different speeds.
• As time goes on the chemicals will separate.
• Although this technique will separate a wide variety of chemicals, in order to SEE the separation we
often use coloured chemical mixtures, such as inks used in felt tip pens. Then the different chemicals
within inks show up as blobs of different colour at various places etc.
• Chromatography in the real world can use mobile phases other than water, and other stationary phases
can be used instead of filter paper. For example GLC chromatography uses a gas moving through
aluminium oxide powder, to work out the alcohol levels in human blood etc.
About chromatography
• No chemical can travel faster than the solvent is travelling
• Longer we leave the chromatography to run , the bigger will be the
distances between the various blobs.
• Chromatography needs to be stopped BEFORE the solvent reaches the
top; otherwise all the chemicals will all end up at the top!
• The Rf value is the ratio of the distance travelled by the chemical to
the distance travelled by the solvent in the same time.
• The Rf value does not change with time…. And can be used to identify
chemicals present by looking up values in data books
If we calculate the Rf values, then identifying unknowns is possible
by looking up various Rf values in date books/ internet etc.