Separating Components Of a Ternary Mixture

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Separating Components of a Ternary Mixture For experiment two, the objective was to separate the three components of a mixture (ternary mixture) containing unknown quantities of sand, sodium chloride, and calcium carbonate. The techniques that were utilized included both physical methods as well as chemical methods; such as decantation, filtration (gravity and vacuum), and extraction. The results were very successful; in fact, a 99.6% recovery was achieved with less than 0.5% error (0.45% to be exact). Calculating the percentages of each component of the ternary mixture was also a success. It was found that the unknown mixture was comprised of 49.8% NaCl, 36.8% SiO2, and 13% CaCO3. Introduction The key to this experiment is to understand solubility and know how to use the solubility of certain components to separate mixtures. Knowing which components are soluble in the solutes that are available proves to be very advantageous. To start the experiment, the unknown ternary mixture will be added to water to produce a solution that includes all of the components of the original mixture (NaCl, SiO2, CaCO3). Since the sodium chloride is soluble in water, gravity filtration will allow for separation of the calcium carbonate and sand (residue) from the NaCl+H2O (filtrate) solution. To separate the water from the NaCl, evaporation is utilized which leaves only the sodium chloride that was in the original mixture. When the NaCl has cooled to room temperature it can then be weighed. The residue from the gravity filtration (sand and calcium carbonate) is then added to 3M HCl to react with the calcium carbonate. Through decantation the resulting supernatant CaCl2+3M HCl solution can be separated from the sand that has settled at the bottom of the beaker. The sand that is the left over residue from the decantation process can then be dried over a boiling water

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