how to seperate koolaid?

Question

My teacher told our class that we had to design an experiment that involved seperating koolaid powder from the water in koolaid. What is the easiest way to seperate the two? I was thinking a coffee filter would work. My friend said she was going to try heating the mixture till the water evaporated. I think that would take a long time though. and would the powder burn? Please tell me your thoughts. thanks.

Answer 1

Have you tried to freeze it?

Here's something I found online that may interest you...

Originally posted by daniel3777
"when an ice berg freezes in salt water, the ice is actually pure water because the freezing water kind of pushes the salt out. so why does the suger in koolaid freeze with the water. i asked my chemistry teacher and he looked for the answer but he doesn't know why. this may seem like a stupid question but it is really bugging me."

"Simple --- the sugar in koolaid does NOT freeze with the water. For your iceberg, you have three phases, solid water, a more concentrated salt solution, and if concentrated enough, solid salt. The solid phases have sufficiently different densities to settle out or float, and the liquid phase is low enough in viscosity that the solids can separate from it. The koolaid? You get solid water in a network of needles in whatever mold you're using to make popsicles; you get a more and more concentrated sugar syrup that has a viscosity that increases with concentration "poured" over the ice crystal network, and at low enough temperatures a "semi-solid" solution of water in sugar, wet sugar plus food coloring. Does it separate into two separate blobs, ice on the top and sugar on the bottom? Eventually, if you cycle your popsicle up and down in temperature without ever exceeding a temperature 2-3 degrees below the freezing point of water --- go check your mother's/g-mom's/friend's freezer for the two year old package of popsicles and look at the contents --- stickly, gooey syrup on one side and colorless ice on the other."

Answer 2

I'm not sure if the holes in the coffee filters would be small enough to catch Kool Aid powder. If you are in middle school or high school, you could try asking a chemistry teacher for some filter paper and explain what you are trying to do. Chemistry labs usualy have filter paper that has much smaller holes than a coffee filter does.

Your friend's idea should work too. If she is worried about burning the Kool Aid, have her heat all but a very tiny layer of Kool Aid from the pot. Then have her stop heating the pot, let the pot sit out over the next few days, and the rest of the water will evaporate on its own.

Both are equally good ideas. Good luck with your experiment. :)

Answer 3

Koo laid in water is in solution and will not be affected by a filter. It is reasonable to assume the matter of Kool Aid is a different weight than that of water, (they would have different boiling points) so you could boil the liquid, capture the 'steam' and cool it to make a liquid. Eventually the Koo laid mixture will boils away, leaving only that which was dissolved in the water to begin with. That powder would be the Kool aid mix.

You need to carefully monitor the boiling, reducing the heat as the liquid volume gets smaller and eventually remove the heat to let the material air dry at room temp. If you are careful, this will work.

Answer 4

Try the filter as part of the experiment. Likely it won't work because the Kool Aid forms a solution. Evaporation (distillation) would work, but the heat could easily change the chemical composition of the sugar. There might be an osmosis or reverse osmosis membrane that would work, but you wouldn't be expected to spend the money to buy one. There might be a way to get the Kool Aid to form a colloidal suspension, which you could then filter, but again the chemical composition would be altered.

Answer 5

have you considered putting oil on top of the water before putting the coolaid in. The oil should bind to the particles and keep it mostly dry.

only thing i can think of.