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P4

THE HYDROSPHERE
INDUSTRIAL SEPERATION PROCESSES
The hydrosphere is the liquid water component of the Earth. It includes the oceans, seas, lakes, ponds, rivers and streams. The hydrosphere covers about 70% of the surface of the Earth. This water is made up of freshwater in rivers and lakes, the saltwater of the oceans and estuaries, groundwater and water vapour. Together, all these water bodies are called the hydrosphere. Like many substances, water can take numerous forms that are broadly categorized by phase of matter. The liquid phase is the most common among water's phases (within the Earth's atmosphere and surface) and is the form that is generally denoted by the word "water." The solid phase of water is known as ice and commonly takes the structure of hard, amalgamated crystals, such as ice cubes, or loosely accumulated granular crystals, like snow. The gaseous phase of water is known as water vapour (or steam), and is characterized by water assuming the configuration of a transparent cloud. (Note that the visible steam and clouds are, in fact, water in the liquid form as minute droplets suspended in the air.) When separating substances, it is important to choose the correct separation technique, which is a method used to separate the components of a mixture from each other. For example, insoluble solids can be separated from liquids in several different ways. The technique used depends on how well substances are mixed together, particle size, boiling points of solids and liquids and the fact of one substance being soluble while the others are insoluble. Because purification of a substance is removal of unwanted substance (impurities), these separation methods are also methods of purifying substances. To separate insoluble impurities from salt, you used a process called filtration. The filter paper allowed the soluble solute (salt) and the solvent (water) to pass through, but it trapped the larger pieces of insoluble impurities as a residue. The substances that pass through the filter paper are called the filtrate. Large pieces of insoluble substances will often settle out of a mixture of a solid and a liquid. This process is called sedimentation, because the solid forms sediment on the bottom of the container. If the solid is very fine, this process can be speeded up with a machine called a centrifuge. Centrifuges spin a test tube very fast, and the solid moves quickly to the bottom of the test tube. To separate a solid solute from a solvent (like salt from water), you used evaporation. At room temperature, water evaporates from a solution very slowly. But the rate of evaporation can be accelerated by heating the solution. As the water evaporated from your salt and water solution, the solution became more concentrated. Eventually, a saturated of salt formed as more water evaporated, the salt crystallized into white crystals. When crystallization happens slowly, big crystals form. Small crystals form when crystallization happens quickly. Crystalline solids have unique crystal shapes. Therefore, crystal shape is a characteristic property of a substance. Distillation is another process used for the separation of one substance from another by evaporation and condensation. The product obtained by distillation is called the distillate. This process is used for purifying liquids having undesired substances in them, for separating different kinds of liquids from each other, and for producing chemical changes in solid substances. There are three main types of distillation: simple, fractional, and destructive. While various countries currently take different stances on how and which waste to separate, the trend will be to separate as much useful waste as possible and deal with it in the most appropriate manner. Separating the different elements found in the many sources of particularly water in the hydrosphere is essential for enabling the recovery of useful materials, minimizing the amount of material sent to landfill and allowing recyclable and natural materials to find a new incarnation. Companies sort and recycle materials in order to extract value, but those operating are also bound by rules and regulations relating to the environment.