sep alcohol from water - visually: how??

[flyboy]

Swims up to something and has to separate water from alcohol, but krikey they are the same color, so how can he tell where one ends and the other begins?

On this note, it got me thinking... are there binding color agents that might help us identify where a certain molecule does or does not exist in our work? Do scientists use colored binders?

 

[Entropymancer]

Alcohol and water are completely miscible, they do not form seperate layers.

What exactly are you trying to do?

 

[Infundibulum]

Well, they do separate if a good amount of salt (any water-soluble simple salt) is dumped in the water-alcohol mixture. And they do form layers, one can see the interphase between them, alcohol floating on top of water.

But separation is NEVER perfect; the bottom layer will contain some water saturated with salt and traces of alcohol, the top layer will be alcohol with a good amount of water.

Totally useless therefore, since they cannot separate completely.

 

[burnt]

the only real way to seperate alcohol from water is low temperature distillation. even that is not even close to 100%.