How can you separate acetone, alcohol, and water?

Answer 1

First fractionally distill the mixture.
At 56.53 °C acetone separates.
But the residual mixture ethanol (96%) / water, boils at 78.2°C ,because of azeotrope formation.
To separate alcohol distillation is useless.
So add quick lime CaO which absorbs the water and leaves behind alcohol.
To obtain back the water, heat CaCO3 formed in the previous step strongly. it decomposes to give back water.

Answer 2

Other than applying the frictional distillation method, methods such as Gas Chromatography(GC) can be used. The accuracy is infact more accurate and the process for analysis is faster. There is a mobile and stationary phase in the GC, the polarity of the phase are controlled according to the type of substance that you are analysing.

The rule of "Like attracts like" applies in GC, whereby if the mobile phase is polar, it will attract the polar components in the mixture to stick to the mobile phase temporaily so as to allow the components that are non-polar or not that polar to be eluted out of the column first.

Other than the polarity, the moe volatile is the component, it will be eluted first. The different components are then identified according to their retention time.

Answer 3

You can distill the acetone off, but alcohol (presuming you mean ethanol) and water form an azeotrope.

Answer 4

fractional distillation