Chemistry Homework Help?

Question

Can someone help me with this problem we have for homework?

Explain a procedure to find the % of salt in a sand/salt mixture.

Any ideas, my best best so far is telling my teacher to count the grains of salt herself. hahah thanks

Answer 1

Weigh the sand-salt mixture.

Add water.

Filter the salt water from the sand. Dry the sand. Weigh the sand. Take the weight of the dried sand, subtract that from the weight of the mixture. Multiply the difference by 100% and you're home free. Subtract the weight sand from the weight mixture and you have the weight salt. Also, subtract % salt from 100%, and you have % salt.

Maybe the teacher says, "Oh, no, Missy! You don't get away as easy as all that!" In that case, you evaporate all the salt water to get the dry salt, weigh the salt, and take the salt divided by the weight of the mixture, x 100%, to get % salt.

Answer 2

Weigh the mixture, then add water, stir, until salt dissolves, then run the mixture through filter paper, then evaporate the salt water until all water evaporates, then weigh the salt.

The weight of the salt divided by the total weight will give you the percentage of salt..

You could also dry the sand and then weigh it instead.