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Lesson: Chapter 3 — Mixtures

3.3. Separating the components 6 of 6

Question 6

Why does shaking an aqueous iodine solution with carbon tetrachloride move the iodine into the carbon tetrachloride layer?

The right answer is the one marked above.

Iodine has a higher solubility in carbon tetrachloride, and the two solvents do not mix. Both conditions are needed: the higher solubility gives the iodine a reason to move, and the two solvents staying in separate layers is what lets you pour them apart afterwards.

The remarkable part is that a small volume of carbon tetrachloride is enough to extract the iodine from a large volume of the aqueous solution.

Answer the question to continue.