Dry Mixture Lab

The objective of this investigation was to separate a dry mixture based on its physical properties. The iron was separated using a magnet and the salt was removed because it was soluble in water, while the remaining sand was not. The mixture in its tray weighed 51.61 grams. The container weighed 2.51 grams, so the mixture alone weighed 49.10 grams. Running a magnet over the mixture successfully removed the iron. It was determined that the more surface area a mixture was spread over, the more iron was picked up by the magnet. The mass of the iron collected in its tray was 11.84 grams. Without the tray, it weighed 9.33 grams. Because the sand was not soluble in water, adding 100 mL of water to the mixture dissolved the salt. Pouring the mixture …show more content…
A 250 mL beaker weighs 122.1 grams and one piece of filter paper weighed 0.6 grams. The sand, beaker, and filter papers weighed 149.75 grams altogether. Without the beaker and filter papers, the sand had a mass of 26.45 grams. The beaker of salt water was placed on a hot plate. The water did not evaporate at 100℃ because the salt elevated its boiling point. So the hot plate’s temperature was raised above 100℃ so that the salt could crystalize. When all the water had evaporated and was no longer in the beaker, the salt remained on the bottom of the container. The weight of the salt in its beaker was 137.55 grams. Without the 250 mL beaker, the salt weighed 15.45 grams. The total weight of the salt, sand, and iron was 51.23 grams, which was different from its initial weight. To determine what percentage of each substance was in the mixture, the substance was divided by the final weight of the mixture then multiplied by 100. The mixture was composed of 18.21% iron, 51.63% sand, and 30.16% salt. The methods used for separating the mixture were successful, but some error occured. For instance, the mass of the mixture increased from 49.10 to