• Question: what are impure substances?

    Asked by anon-227008 to William, Thibaut "Tibo", Harry, Georgia, Emily, Aimee on 14 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Aimee Egglestone

      Aimee Egglestone answered on 14 Nov 2019:

      Impure substances are materials which aren’t 100% what they are meant to be. For example, juice is “impure” water because it has other materials like fruit and sugar in it!

    • Photo: Georgia Orton

      Georgia Orton answered on 14 Nov 2019: last edited 14 Nov 2019 11:24 pm

      As chemists we would tend to use the word ‘impure’ to describe something which is a mixture. Often when we do reactions a little bit of the chemical we started with is left. Sometimes the reaction can make more than one thing. We then have to purify the thing we want by getting rid of everything else!

    • Photo: Thibaut Deviese

      Thibaut Deviese answered on 16 Nov 2019:

      impure substances are substances that do not contain 100% of what it is supposed to be. For example, very often solvents are not totally pure because they put additives in them to stabilise them The more a substance is pure, the more expensive it is to buy it..

    • Photo: William Wiseman

      William Wiseman answered on 19 Nov 2019:

      I describe them as anything that shouldn’t be in the material you are making. With some of the ceramic materials I make, an impurity is iron. It appears as a brown spot in a white tile.

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