Question

Describe the process by which clean water can be separated from muddy water.

Answer 1

Hint: A well-known age old method of separation is filtration. Filtration through a cloth is usually practiced to separate clean water from muddy water. Apart from filtration there may be other scientific methods also associated with it.

Complete Step- by-step solution:
There are different ways by which clean water is separated from muddy water. Most of these processes are physical processes where chemical reactions are not required. So the ways of getting pure or clean water from muddy water are filtration, evaporation, sedimentation. Let us first learn what is sedimentation and then other processes. Sedimentation is a physical process in which suspended solid particles when present in a sample of water, the particles are allowed to settle at the bottom of the container by gravity separation. This process is used for water treatment.
-To perform filtration of muddy water, take a beaker or glass jar into which place a funnel with the four folded filter paper. Now pour the muddy water into the funnel and collect the filtrate into the beaker. Repeat the process until clear water is obtained. The principle for this process is, filter paper contains small pores in it; these pores allow liquid to flow through it but does not allow solid particles. So the mud in the water gets collected into the filter paper and can be discarded.
-Another process is evaporation of muddy water. Take the water into a closed flask with an opening at one end of the flask. Insert a glass tube into it and the other end of the tube into a beaker. Now heat the flask with muddy water to its boiling point when the evaporated water goes into the tube in the form of steam and gets cooled and collected as clean water into the beaker.

Note: Filtration is the most favored and widely used easy process for the separation of solid particles from water or liquid. Filtration technique is also used in laboratories for the separation of precipitates, in crystallization to collect the purified compound from alcohol.