Mixtures and separations

Activities in this section cover the differences between compounds and mixtures. Experiments involving a wide variety of separation techniques are included (e.g. chromatography and distillation).

While we are still at an early stage with this website it's probably more useful to look at the page with our complete list of experiments in alphabetical order. See the list on About this website.

We are starting with GCSE-level experiments.

Experiments

• Chromatography of leaves

  Students use chromatography to separate the pigments in a leaf.

• Decolourising and deodorising

  Students observe how activated charcoal removes colour and odour from various solutions.

• Solid mixtures – a tin and lead solder

  The melting points of tin, lead and a tin-lead solder are compared.

• Purification of an impure solid

  A dirty-looking solid is given to students. The aim is to obtain pure solid by dissolving, filtration, evaporation and crystallisation.

• Chemicals from seawater

  Students reduce the volume of seawater by boiling and obtain a mixture of different salts. Some of these salts are separated from the mixture.

• Chromatography of sweets

  A colourful experiment using chromatography paper to separate out individual dyes from different coloured confectionary.

• Separating sand and salt

  A simple experiment to separate a mixture of sand and salt.

• The sublimation of air-freshener

  The sublimation of air freshener can be observed by heating it in a water bath and cooling the resulting vapour. A fume cupboard is required for this experiment.

• Heating Group 1 metals in air and in chlorine

  This experiment demonstrates the reactions of Group 1 metals in air and in chlorine.

• Iron and sulfur reaction

  Two elements, iron and sulfur, react together to form a new compound.