help please?

Question

i do not undestand this problem at all my mom & dad have tried it but they dont understand it. please help && i'll love you forever lol


http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=15gyxsk&s=2

Answer 1

If there is already H2O in the mixture, then it has dissolved the NaCl and ethanol. Only the sand is sitting there at the bottom. So, rig up a filter using a funnel and a circle of coffee machine filter paper, and filter the salt-water-alcohol from the sand. Next, distil the liquid so that you boil away the alcohol and water from the salt, which will remain at the bottom of the boiling vessel. You condense the vapor from that distillation to a mixture of water and alcohol. You scrape the salt from the bottom of the boiling pot. Finally, distil the water alcohol mixture.

One thing that the maker-up of this problem did not consider is that one cannot cleanly distil low-boiling alcohol away from higher-boiling water. The reason is that water and alcohol form a constant boiling azeotrope, which is 95% alcohol and 5% water. What that means is that you can never get above 95% alcohol in your separation. People who make 100% alcohol use other means to get around the problem.

Answer 2

First you would filter out the sand. Then, you could use distillation to separate the alcohol from the salt water mixture. Distillation separates liquids by boiling point. The alcohol fraction will come off first. All of the water will eventually boil off and be condensed back into liquid water by the distillation apparatus. The salt will be left in the bottom of the boiling flask.