“Salting out” experiment

How to extract sodium chloride from its solution

In this sim­ple ex­per­i­ment you’ll find out about a process that is used in the pro­duc­tion of soap!

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions

Wear a pro­tec­tive mask, gloves and glass­es and work in a well-ven­ti­lat­ed room. Ob­serve safe­ty rules when work­ing with con­cen­trat­ed acids.

Warn­ing! Don’t try to re­peat this ex­per­i­ment with­out a pro­fes­sion­al su­per­vi­sion!

Reagents and equip­ment:

  • sat­u­rat­ed sodi­um chlo­ride so­lu­tion (100 ml);
  • con­cen­trat­ed hy­drochlo­ric acid (50 ml);
  • 3 beakers.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

Into the sat­u­rat­ed sodi­um chlo­ride so­lu­tion, pour con­cen­trat­ed hy­drochlo­ric acid. Watch a white sed­i­ment pre­cip­i­tate – sodi­um chlo­ride.

Pro­cess­es de­scrip­tion

When so­lu­tions of sodi­um chlo­ride and hy­drochlo­ric acid are mixed, sodi­um chlo­ride pre­cip­i­tates. This is be­cause hy­drochlo­ric acid cre­ates an ex­cess of chlo­ride ions in the so­lu­tion. The “sur­plus” chlo­ride ions leave the so­lu­tion and take the sodi­um ions with them. This process is called salt­ing out. This method is used for pu­ri­fy­ing, ex­tract­ing and sep­a­rat­ing sub­stances.

Try it