Question

Acetone and water is separated by:
(A)- distillation
(B)- fractional distillation
(C)- centrifugation
(D)- decantation

Answer 1

Hint: The separation of the two highly miscible liquids, with varying boiling points can be separated through heating the mixture slowly, with the substance with lower boiling point evaporates first and thus, separates from the mixture.

Complete step by step solution:
In the mixture of acetone and water, the acetone is a highly miscible liquid and dissolves readily in water. But the boiling point of water is ${{100}^{\circ }}C$ and boiling point of acetone is ${{56}^{\circ }}C$ , that is a difference of ${{44}^{\circ }}C$. So, the separation method is chosen in which the difference in their boiling point is considered having a difference more than $25K$. That is, the distillation process.
In the distillation method, the two liquids present in the distillation flask are boiled and the liquid with lower boiling point, that is the acetone, vaporises first and gets condensed and isolated from the mixture, leaving behind the water in the flask. Thus, both the miscible liquids get separated, without getting decomposed during the process.

Therefore, the acetone and the water mixture are separated by option (A)- distillation.

Additional information:
The decantation technique is used when one of the substances in the immiscible mixture is heavier than the other. Such that the heavier substance settles down at the bottom and the water can be removed.
Whereas, in the centrifugation method the high spinning of the mixture is done on the basis of their density. The denser component under high speed gets forced out first.

Note: In the separation of two substances in the mixture, if the difference in the boiling points would have been less than $25K$, then we would have made use of the fractional distillation method.