Identify each of the following as characteristic of a solution, colloid, or suspension:
a. a mixture that cannot be separated by a semipermeable membrane

Question

Identify each of the following as characteristic of a solution, colloid, or suspension:

a. a mixture that cannot be separated by a semipermeable membrane

Accepted Answer

Welcome back, everyone classify the following as a colloid suspension or solution, a lukewarm mixture of sodium chloride and water cannot be separated by semipermeable membranes or filters. So we're going to differentiate a colloid from a suspension beginning with colloids. Let's recall that colloids consist of large molecules and can also be consisting of groups of molecules and ions. Let's next recall that in colloids are particles will not settle and separation for colloids is attained through semipermeable membranes. So we won't have the use of filters. Now, on the other hand, suspensions consist of very large particles, they can either be visible or not in suspensions. We would observe that particles do subtle and we would observe that separation in suspensions is occurred via filters. So if we visualize sodium chloride dissolved in water, recognize that sodium chloride is ionic and recall our soluble rules for chlorides which state that all chlorides except for silver lead and mercury chlorides are all soluble. So, sodium chloride would be soluble in water and in solution, we would have a even distribution of our sodium ions and chloride anions which are our products here. So these would be or this would consist of a solution which is mainly our ions as well as a few of our sodium chloride and water molecules. However, because we have this lukewarm mixture, we would understand that all of our molecules of sodium chloride is completely dissolved. So we have a solution, completely full of ions which are extremely small particles. And because of this even distribution of our ions surrounded by our water molecules, it would not make sense to label our solution as a suspension since we would not be able to filter out the very small ion particles. So our ions surrounded by our water molecules create a homogenous mixture which cannot be filtered. And so therefore, based on our prompt, we would classify our mixture of sodium chloride and water as simply just a solution, we can also note down that aside from not being able to use a filter, we also will not be able to use semipermeable membranes to separate our mixture. And so solution is going to be our final answer to complete this example. I hope that this made sense and let us know if you have any questions.

Identify each of the following as characteristic of a solution, colloid, or suspension:
a. a mixture that cannot be separated by a semipermeable membrane

Verified video answer for a similar problem:

Key Concepts

Solution

Colloid

Suspension