Seperating Mixtures Essay Example

poured off to leave the insoluble solid behind. However it is inefficient because a small amount of liquid is always left in the solid residue and very fine solid particles take some time to settle out and any disturbance of the liquid can mix them in with the liquid being poured off. Chromatography is used to separate mixtures of substances into their components. All forms of chromatography work with the same principle.

They all have a stationary phase, a solid, or a liquid supported on a solid, and a mobile phase, a liquid or a gas. The mobile phase flows through the stationary phase and carries the components of the mixture with it. Different components travel at different rates. In paper chromatography, the stationary phase is a very uniform absorbent paper. The mobile phase is a suitable liquid solvent or mixture of solvents. The dyes travel up the chromatography paper at different distances before they cannot remain in olution. The more soluble dyes move further up than the less soluble ones, hence separating from each other. Distillation, paper chromatography, and decanting are only three of the many methods chemists use to separate mixtures. Other methods include filtration, sedimentation, and more. Chemists need to use these procedures for analysis, because it is necessary to separate a mixture into its component, compounds, or elements. Then each component can be analyzed and identified for further research or conclusions.