Mechanical Separations

Mechanical separations: separation process is used to transform a mixture of substances into two or more distinct products. The separated products could differ in chemical properties or some physical property, such as size, or crystal modification or other separation into different components. Adsorption is the accumulation of atoms or moleules on the surface of a material. This process creates a film of the adsorbate (the molecules or atoms being accumulated) on the adsorbent's surface

Chromatography (from Greek χρώμα:chroma, color and

γραφειν:graphein to write) is the collective term for a set of laboratory techniques for the separation of mixtures. It involves passing a mixture dissolved in a "mobile phase" through a stationary phase, which separates the analyte to be measured from other molecules in the mixture based on differential partitioning between the mobile and stationary phases.

Crystallization is the (natural or artificial) process of formation of solid crystals precipitating from a solution, melt or more rarely deposited directly from a gas. Crystallization is also a chemical solid-liquid separation technique, in which mass transfer of a solute from the liquid solution to a pure solid crystalline phase occurs.

Distillation is a method of separating mixtures based on differences in their volatilities in a boiling liquid mixture. Distillation is a unit operation, or a physical separation process, and not a chemical reaction.

Evaporation is the vaporization of a liquid and the reverse of condensation. A type of phase transition, it is the process by which molecules in a liquid state (e.g. water) spontaneously become gaseous (e.g. water vapor).

Leaching is the process of extracting minerals from a solid by dissolving them in a liquid, either in nature or through an industrial process Flocculation is, in the field of chemistry, a process where colloids come out of suspension in the form of floc or flakes. The action differs from precipitation in that, prior to flocculation, colloids are merely suspended in a liquid and not actually dissolved in a solution Magnetic separation is a process in which magnetically susceptible material is extracted from a mixture using a magnetic force. This separation technique can be useful in mining iron as it is attracted to a magn Gravity separation is an industrial method of separating two components from a suspension or any other homogeneous mixture where separating the components with gravity is sufficiently practical. Precipitation is the formation of a solid in a solution during a chemical reaction. When the reaction occurs, the solid formed is called the precipitate

Sublimation of an element or compound is a transition from the solid to gas phase with no intermediate liquid stage

Sieving is a simple and convenient method of separating particles of different sizes. A small sieve such as is used for sieving flour has very small holes which allow only very fine flour particles to pass through them

Sedimentation is the tendency for particles in suspension or molecules in solution to settle out of the fluid in which they are entrained, and come to rest against a wall. This is due to their motion through the fluid in response to the forces acting on them: these forces can be due to gravity, centrifugal acceleration or electromagnetism.