Can I use distillation to raise the concentration of salt on solution

[Emilia1320]

So, is there any drawbacks on using distillation on aqueous solution containing a low concentration of salts of cadmium so that it would be easier to detect cadmium on solution as concentration would increase?

When I distillate it would it be so that all of cadmiumic salt would stay on the original container and only water evaporate away? So for the concentration of cadmiumic salt would be for example 10 times larger if I distillate 9/10 of water away?

I can't figure out any drawbacks but I guess there is some... So I would find it awesomely helpful if someone could give me some feedback on usage of method like this

[Baller97]

So, is there any drawbacks on using distillation on aqueous solution containing a low concentration of salts of cadmium so that it would be easier to detect cadmium on solution as concentration would increase?

When I distillate it would it be so that all of cadmiumic salt would stay on the original container and only water evaporate away? So for the concentration of cadmiumic salt would be for example 10 times larger if I distillate 9/10 of water away?

I can't figure out any drawbacks but I guess there is some... So I would find it awesomely helpful if someone could give me some feedback on usage of method like this

Well what are you exactly trying to do?

[Emilia1320]

So, is there any drawbacks on using distillation on aqueous solution containing a low concentration of salts of cadmium so that it would be easier to detect cadmium on solution as concentration would increase?

When I distillate it would it be so that all of cadmiumic salt would stay on the original container and only water evaporate away? So for the concentration of cadmiumic salt would be for example 10 times larger if I distillate 9/10 of water away?

I can't figure out any drawbacks but I guess there is some... So I would find it awesomely helpful if someone could give me some feedback on usage of method like this

Well what are you exactly trying to do?

I'm trying to investigate waste water of one mine (so that I would take the sample from their pool, very one they are going to release to lakes and rivers lol) and see if it contains cadmiumic salt as many claim. I know its a long shot but I have time and if it works I could maybe figure out something that could be a IA or EE topic.

Furthermore I don't like the way they poison the nature, especially as it's quite close to my home

Just an interesting piece of idea I came across with

[Baller97]

 

 

So, is there any drawbacks on using distillation on aqueous solution containing a low concentration of salts of cadmium so that it would be easier to detect cadmium on solution as concentration would increase?

When I distillate it would it be so that all of cadmiumic salt would stay on the original container and only water evaporate away? So for the concentration of cadmiumic salt would be for example 10 times larger if I distillate 9/10 of water away?

I can't figure out any drawbacks but I guess there is some... So I would find it awesomely helpful if someone could give me some feedback on usage of method like this

Well what are you exactly trying to do?

I'm trying to investigate waste water of one mine (so that I would take the sample from their pool, very one they are going to release to lakes and rivers lol) and see if it contains cadmiumic salt as many claim. I know its a long shot but I have time and if it works I could maybe figure out something that could be a IA or EE topic.

Furthermore I don't like the way they poison the nature, especially as it's quite close to my home

Just an interesting piece of idea I came across with

 

That's actually an interesting idea! You could discuss it with your chem teacher.. not many drawbacks though, except the availability of resources your require? and it's accuracy, etc.

[behaaa]

It sounds like something dangerous, and going to  mine could also put you at risk. Discuss with your chem teacher on whether it would be considered safe by the IB.

[Emilia1320]

It sounds like something dangerous, and going to  mine could also put you at risk. Discuss with your chem teacher on whether it would be considered safe by the IB.

Those pools are on open area outside, I'm not going underground ^^ they are large pools with walls of clay, and they aren't deep. It's kind of weird mine and it has caused a lot harm here.

[Emmi]

Oooh we just finished studying distillation in my separation process class and I have a test on distillation tomorrow and I did a lab this morning where I distilled propanol and tetrahydrofuran so I'm going to answer!

 

Distillation involves separating two liquids on the basis of their boiling points. For the most simple distillation processes you simply add heat, and by raising the temperature you end up boiling the liquid with a lower boiling point first. This is sent to a condensing unit and the vapor is cooled back into a liquid. You end up with two products: a distillate that's enriched in the liquid with the lower boiling point, and a bottoms product, which is enriched in the higher boiling point liquid.

 

Here you seem like you are going to try to separate an aqueous solution of cadmium salt with pure water I presume? The aqueous cadmium solutions are going to have a higher boiling point than pure water, so you will end up getting a distillate that's primarily water with a little bit of the cadmium solution, and a bottoms that's primarily the cadmium solution. The concentration isn't necessarily going to be ten times larger, though. It could be ten times larger, or it could be five times, or whatever. Based on the thermodynamic properties of the two compounds as they exist in equilibrium with each other, you may end up getting a limiting concentration that you can't exceed without doing some additional things to the process to bypass that limit. This may not exist, but it might and I don't know if it applies to this situation.

 

While you'd get this separation, your major drawbacks are:

- Cadmium is toxic

- It may be hard to get the distillation equipment (my high school only had a handful of distillation sets, and only the HL chemistry kids got to use them and only for like two labs)

 

Those two in particular would be the major drawbacks I immediately can think of. 

 

To me this suggests an evaporation process would be your best bet rather than a distillation process because when you send a liquid with one concentration into an evaporator, the heat boils off pure water as a vapor and leaves you with a liquid that's at a higher concentration than what you started with because you've lost some water. Evaporation is simpler than distillation because evaporation can be as simple as simply placing a large tray of something in the sun and letting the sun evaporate the water (they actually produce salt sometimes like this) rather than having to deal with a distillation column. You'd still want to be careful though, since cadmium is toxic. 

[Emilia1320]

Oooh we just finished studying distillation in my separation process class and I have a test on distillation tomorrow and I did a lab this morning where I distilled propanol and tetrahydrofuran so I'm going to answer!

 

Distillation involves separating two liquids on the basis of their boiling points. For the most simple distillation processes you simply add heat, and by raising the temperature you end up boiling the liquid with a lower boiling point first. This is sent to a condensing unit and the vapor is cooled back into a liquid. You end up with two products: a distillate that's enriched in the liquid with the lower boiling point, and a bottoms product, which is enriched in the higher boiling point liquid.

 

Here you seem like you are going to try to separate an aqueous solution of cadmium salt with pure water I presume? The aqueous cadmium solutions are going to have a higher boiling point than pure water, so you will end up getting a distillate that's primarily water with a little bit of the cadmium solution, and a bottoms that's primarily the cadmium solution. The concentration isn't necessarily going to be ten times larger, though. It could be ten times larger, or it could be five times, or whatever. Based on the thermodynamic properties of the two compounds as they exist in equilibrium with each other, you may end up getting a limiting concentration that you can't exceed without doing some additional things to the process to bypass that limit. This may not exist, but it might and I don't know if it applies to this situation.

 

While you'd get this separation, your major drawbacks are:

- Cadmium is toxic

- It may be hard to get the distillation equipment (my high school only had a handful of distillation sets, and only the HL chemistry kids got to use them and only for like two labs)

 

Those two in particular would be the major drawbacks I immediately can think of. 

 

To me this suggests an evaporation process would be your best bet rather than a distillation process because when you send a liquid with one concentration into an evaporator, the heat boils off pure water as a vapor and leaves you with a liquid that's at a higher concentration than what you started with because you've lost some water. Evaporation is simpler than distillation because evaporation can be as simple as simply placing a large tray of something in the sun and letting the sun evaporate the water (they actually produce salt sometimes like this) rather than having to deal with a distillation column. You'd still want to be careful though, since cadmium is toxic.

Thanks for a detailed reply!

The main problem is that in order to investigate the salts dissolved on those waters I first need to gather some of salts, which could be done by evaporation, where problem is that the concentration I'm dealing with is very low. So my plan is sort of to first get rid of some water, so I can then put some solution that has higher amount of salts on evaporation disk, and get a visible amount of those salts