Question

How do you separate a mixture of sand, salt, water, ethanol and iron filings?

Answer 1

The first step will be the filtration of the mixture. On the filter will be sand and iron fillings, and liquid filtrate will be a salt solution in the water-ethanol mixture. Then we separate iron fillings from the sand with a magnet. After that we will evaporate water and ethanol from the liquid filtrate, so the dry salt will left. After condensation of the water-ethanol vapor we will distillate this mixture and obtain pure water and pure ethanol.