Question

A student stirs a mixture of sand, iron filling, and water and observes that eventually the sand and iron fillings sing to the bottom of the container. How can the student separate the mixture?

Answer 1

Use coffee filter to separate water, use magnets to separate iron fillings and isolate sand

Answer 2

Using the fact that the iron is magnetic, a magnet can be used to separate the iron fillings from the mixture by moving the magnet around in the container. Keeping the magnet in a plastic bag makes it easy to separate the filings from the magnet when you pull it out.

The sand can then be separated by passing the remaining mixture through the filter paper. The salt can be separated from the supernatant by pouring some into the evaporating dish on a hot plate and evaporating the water.