What is the best way to filter out the pure water from a muddy solution of water and dirt?
This is for a science (specifically Chemistry) lab we were doing. Our teacher brought out a beaker with a muddy mix of water and dirt, telling us to try and seperate the dirt from water and produce as much pure water as possible. We have access to all the equipment at school, like the bunsen burners, beakers and such. He instructed us to create an original way to filter out the dirt. We are allowed to bring materials or supplies from home, although he suggested not to bring coffee filters as that isn’t very original… and I have been brainstorming with no conclusions. Any suggestions or cool ideas?
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Filed under: Water Filter System
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Make a water still. Separate the pure water from the dirt through distillation, either by evaporation (slow) or by heating it to boiling (fast). Have the pure water vapor condense and drip into a clean unsealed flask.
Seal your flask of muddy water with a stopper with a hole in it. Attach tubing to the flask through the stopper. Arrange the tubing so that it goes to a much higher level (try at least 1 foot), then loosely coil it downward and have the open end inside a clean empty flask that is not sealed (you don’t want to build up pressure that might explode the flasks, so make sure the tubing is not kinked and the flask is open to air.) Heat the muddy water over a bunsen burner to boiling. The water vapor that escapes will travel up through your tubing and when cooled by the lower temperature of the air around the coiled tubing, it will condense back into water and drip into your clean flask, giving you fairly pure water.
I think the best chemical way is to heat the mixture and evaporate the water, while having a tube connected to the top of the beaker where you can collect the pure water vapor and then cool it back into liquid. That might hard to rig up though…the standard way would be to use a water filter