Mixture, Compounds, and Elements

Mixture, Compounds, and Elements

Differences between Mixtures and Compounds

Compounds are substances in which atoms and molecules that are chemically fused to one another. They may contain several elements depending on the complexity of their nature. The composition of compounds are definite and do not change with the change in variables. For example water contains 11.1% Hydrogen and 88.9% Oxygen (Magnasco, 2011).

Compounds are formed when two or more elements or compounds reach with each other to form an entirely new product with distinct characteristics. The properties of compounds are fixed irrespective of any factor. The only time the properties changes are when they are heated of cooled.

On the other hand, mixtures are substances in which more than one substance is present together but the chemical composition of the individual components remain the same. Some mixtures can be separated by a combination of processes. For example a mixture of alum and water can be separated by boiling the solution. Boiling evaporates the water which can be captured in the form of steam and cooled to a liquid state. The residual of this boiling process is pure alum. These compounds can again be mixed by stirring the alum in water.

Mixtures do not have a fixed quality. Depending on the amount of each substance contained in the mixture, its properties vary a lot. For example a mixture of sand and salt can have various different quantities of sand and salt. Thus the exact amount of each substance is never constant unlike compounds.

Distinguishing between a Compound and an Element

An element is a pure substance that cannot be chemically broken down into smaller components. Even if they are vaporized, the basic element remains the same. For example if mercury is heated it will vaporized, and whether in the gaseous state or liquid state, the element will be the same and will not break down.

Another way of determining whether or not the substance is an element is to reach it with other elements. For example when Oxygen and hot Sulfur react, sulfur emits a bright blue light producing Sulfur Oxide. This bright blue light indicates that the substance is pure Sulfur (Springer series in chemical physics, 2001).

Compounds, on the other hand, can be broken down to individual elements through chemical processes or heat. The easiest way to check whether a substance is an element or compound is to heat it at very high temperature and pressure. In this process, the molecules of the compound will break up into individual elements which can be tested.

There are various ways by which compounds can be tested. For example if presented with some organic compound, heating the substance at high pressure and temperature will break the substance into some other substance. Thus it will be determined that the substance is a compound.

Differences between Ionic and Covalent Bond

Ionic bond occurs when elements transfer electrons from one atom to another. This happens when the electrovalence force (EV) is greater than 1.7. In this type of chemical bonding, two oppositely charged atoms ...