Mass Separation: Crash Course Engineering #17

It can be really important to separate out chemicals for all kinds of reasons. Today we’re going over three different processes engineers use to achieve that separation: distillation, which separates substances based on their different boiling points; liquid-liquid extraction, which uses differences in solubility to transfer a contaminant into a solvent; and reverse osmosis, which filters molecules from a solvent by pressurizing it through a semipermeable barrier.

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[danhc]

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is... one of the hearts of Chemical Engineering.

[rohwermusicstudios]

I was really glad there weren't too many new terms presented in this video: considerably easier to understand when there aren't so many terms thrown at you that you're expected to know to understand the rest of what's going on.
I really love understanding these engineering principles more in-depth!

[UBCMETCommunity]

Great explanation. I can see this being helpful to a number of Chemistry students, allowing them to visualize these concepts.

The mustard getting mixed into the pudding also gave me a good chuckle and a very practical example of two tasty substances on their own that you would very much like to separate if mixed together.

[AhimsaMedia]

This is definitely a video that I would have used with my students for additional support when I taught high school chemistry. Great explanation.

Love the addition of the real world examples at the end.

[JEOGRAPHYSongs]

The separation of chemicals is such a precise and tricky practice. Thank you for helping us to understand and be better informed about how to safely and effectively divide and parcel out chemicals in the most efficient way that is possible!

[danhc]

People, don't get deluded by this super nice and cute explanation!! The engineering and calculations behind these (unit) operations are hell, a lot of empiricism, graphical methods, loads of simplifications, rules of thumb, heuristics... It's at the same time brilliant and dirty as heck XD

[viocheng]

Hello Chemical Engineering, my old friend...

[heavyweaponsguy]

fantastic! you can do a whole episode about water treatment

[wedfrest]

I had to design a distillation column in my 3rd year design project. It was a complete nightmare ha ha. Have fun kids.

[rkpetry]

*_...left out centrifuges, like for separating uranium isotopes,  (but you have gravity); left out matrix-matrix affinities where elements are very similar like for separating hydrogen from deuterium by metal matrix e.g. palladium prefers H>²H, (but you have solubility in liquid)..._*
*_...(and long ago, there was a story about a woman trying to remove salt from her coffee)..._*

[JEOGRAPHYSongs]

I like the picture of the person in the striped shirt, sitting on the couch, with several slices of pizza scattered all over the place. That's how I feel at the end of a loooong day!

[jacobdoesstuff]

Crash course is such an inspiring channel! I love the variety of topics, and the way they mix live action video and graphics. It's been a big inspiration for my own channel, actually, and my videos are put together in a similar way, and tackle some similar topics. Though, of course I'm not nearly as professional as these guys yet, I've o ly just started. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for creating something cool and inspiring, and I'm sure a lot of other people would say the same. You're really cool.

[mariusk]

First Year Chemical Engineering stuff, very well explained.
P.S. Imperial College London is the best))

[woled]

So, this is what my father do in Saudi Arabia. Me and my family live there because of his work there. After Seven years in Saudi Arabia, I finally learned what happens in my father' work.

[laurenzm]

Hey Guys,
does anyone of you like to see a series about Artificial Intelligence coming from CC?
I would love it!

[baltakatei]

08:27 This is a bit too ambiguous. I think a better way to phrase it is "The solvent moves from the side with the lower solute concentration to the side with the higher solute concentration".

The point of the semipermeable membrane is that it prevents the solute from flowing from the the side of higher solute concentration to the side of lower solute concentration; therefore the solvent moves instead; the driving force of this solvent flow is "osmotic pressure".

[francoislacombe]

Fun fact. One cannot produce pure ethanol by the distillation of a water-ethanol mixture. The best one can get is just under 96% ethanol.

[antioch]

I love this series - all sorts of new and interesting things to learn about!

[SanctuaryReintegrate]

You could also add more pudding to lower the concentration of mustard.

[christinaolesen]

wow! because of the thumbnail, i really thought this was going to address social isolation in the modern world