Separation of Mixtures

Mixtures are made by mixing 2 or more substances without Chemical Combination.

Most of the materials around us are mixtures, and sometimes we require the different constituents of mixtures. So, we need to separate it by Physical Methods . Let's look at those methods.

Methods of separating different components of mixture depends upon the type of mixture.

We consider 3 cases of Separating Mixtures

• Solid from Solid
• Solid and Liquid
• Two Liquids

Solid from solid

Solid and solid mixtures can be separated by

• Using a suitable solvent
  Like we can separate salt and sand by using water water as a solvent (We dissolve both salt and sand in water, salt dissolves, sand doesn't)
  
  
• Using Sublimation
  We heat solid to make it into vapours, and then cool vapours to make solid
  
  
• Using a magnet
  We can separate iron filings from Sand using a Magnet
  
  
• By using Sieves or Hand-Picking
  

  We can separate stone from pulses using this method

Solid and liquid

Solid and liquid mixtures can be separated by

• Using filtration
  Filtration is used to separate solid substances which are not dissolved in liquid. Like - Sand from Water. It cannot be used to separate Sugar from Water
  
  
• Using Centrifugation
  Centrifugation is used to remove suspended particles from a mixture. Example - Cream from Milk , Blood cells and plasma from Blood
  
  
• By Evaporation
  It used to separate solid substances which are dissolved in liquid. We heat solution until the solvent gets evaporated. Example -  Dye from Ink
  
  
• By Crystallisation
  We cool a hot concentrated solution to obtain crystals. This is similar to Evaporation, but has advantages (check link above). Example - Salt from Sea Water  
  
  
• By Chromatography
  It is used to separate 2 or more dissolved solids in a solution, but these dissolved solids are in very less quantities. Example - Different Dyes from Blank Ink
  
  

Liquid and liquid

Liquid and liquid mixtures can be separated by

• Using Separating Funnel
  It is used to separate two immiscible liquids. Example - Oil and Water
  
  
• By  Distillation
  In Distillation, we boil the mixture and then condensate it. It used to separate two miscible liquids. Example - Acetone and Water
  
• Using Fractional Distillation
  It is a form of distillation, but in fractional distillation, the boiling points of the component mixtures are closer.  Example - Crude Oil Refining

Thus, two summarise

Different Methods used for Separating Mixtures

Method used are different for different types of mixture as shown below;