Ever heard of "phase separation" of ethanol/water mixture?

[pippo]

I mean, I have never seen water and ethanol separate from an aqueous solution, at room temp, at different concentrations of the ETOH. I thought polarity was the predominant determining factor here. Like likes like. Can a solution of ETOH/H2O separate by "phase separation"? Or is this pseudo science, people?

 

Thanks

Edited November 1, 2012 by pippo

[elementcollector1]

I mean, I have never seen water and ethanol separate from an aqueous solution, at room temp, at different concentrations of the ETOH. I thought polarity was the predominant determining factor here. Like likes like. Can a solution of ETOH/H2O separate by "phase separation"? Or is this pseudo science, people?

 

Thanks

 

I wouldn't think this would work, at least not under standard temperature and pressure and such. Like you said, "like dissolves like". At low concentration of ethanol, it dissolves in the water. At higher concentrations, the water dissolves in the ethanol.

[John Cuthber]

Is adding potassium carbonate cheating?

[pippo]

No, John, cant add contaminants. Thanks for the reassurance, element. I was pretty confident about this. (if your curios about why I posted, its a common issue with ethanol added gasoline mixtures. Commmon misconception is the ethanol separates from water, but actually, the water/ETOH blend separates from the GASOLINE portion. )

[Fuzzwood]

Hmmz, that is not entirely true. Water/EtOH will separate, but not all EtOH will leave the gasoline.