Question

How would you obtain sodium chloride from a mixture of sodium chloride and sulphur without using water?

Answer 1

Sulphur is soluble in carbon tetrachloride but sodium chloride is insoluble in it. Thus a mixture of sulphur and sodium chloride can be separated if we use carbon tetrachloride as the solvent. This can be done by shaking a mixture of sulphur and sodium chloride in carbon tetrachloride. Sulphur gets dissolved whereas sodium chloride remains undissolved. Then we filter the mixture using a filter paper. Sodium chloride is obtained as a solid on filter paper. Sulphur can also be recovered by evaporating the filtrate containing sulphur. Carbon tetrachloride boils off leaving behind sulphur.