What makes liquids immiscible

Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph. Chemistry Expert. Helmenstine holds a Ph. She has taught science courses at the high school, college, and graduate levels. Facebook Facebook Twitter Twitter. Updated September 13, Featured Video. During the rainy season, one of the major concerns of the people who own a vehicle is that if water sweeps into the fuel tank, it may cause harm to the engine.

Modern cars have good sealing against water. So what if water gets in the fuel tank? Gasoline or petrol is a clear petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines. It consists mostly of organic compounds obtained by the fractional distillation of petroleum, enhanced with a variety of additives.

One can try and mix them, but they eventually separate again. Petrol is less dense than water, so water settles to the bottom and the petrol floats on top of the water. The advantage of this is that if water accidentally enters inside the fuel tank, it will settle down mostly in the reserve section, saving the engine from any malfunction. Another most common example that one can find in their kitchen for two immiscible liquids is corn syrup and vegetable oil. Corn syrup is a sweet syrup produced by milling corn into cornstarch and then putting the cornstarch through the process of acid hydrolysis.

The density of corn syrup is approximately 1. Corn syrup is almost entirely made of dextrose, a sugar. Density is an important concept in chemistry that is defined as the mass of an object per unit volume. Density is a physical property of matter that describes how closely packed together the atoms or molecules of a substance are.

Scientists use density in different ways. They use it to identify unknown substances and to separate different liquids. If a solution with a lower density is added to a solution with a greater density, the less dense solution will rest on top of the denser solution. On the contrary, if a solution with a greater density is added to a solution with a lower density, the higher density solution will naturally fall to the bottom.

The density of vegetable oil is approximately 0. Therefore, when mixed together, the corn syrup will settle down, and the vegetable oil will float over it. If you visit a home decor store, you may come across an interesting kind of lamp known as the Lava lamp.

Color the rubbing alcohol a different color in another mixing cup. They are less viscous i. We don't want them to mix. Tip the glass slightly, and pouring slowly down the side of the glass, add first the colored water, then the vegetable oil, and finally the colored rubbing alcohol. On a piece of paper, make a sketch of the glass and its liquids, labeling the position of each liquid in your glass. Why do the liquids stay separated? Can you think of several ways that the liquids in the glass are different?

Try to describe some properties that differ in each of the liquids in the glass. One property that is different in all of the liquids is color. Another property unique to each liquid is thickness viscosity.

The property of the liquids that is responsible for the layering effect is density. Can you guess what the relationship is between the density of a liquid and its position in the glass? Another property that keeps the liquids separate is that some of them are immiscible liquids, in other words they do not mix with each other.

As you proved in the first experiment, oil and water are immiscible liquids. Are Ions Hydrophobic Or Hydrophilic? Defining Characteristics of Lipid Molecules. What Dissolves Oil? Characteristics of Ionic and Covalent Compounds.

What is a Solvent? Which Lipids Are Water Soluble? How to Memorize Solubility Rules. Characteristics of Hydrogen Bonding.

What Does Solute Mean? Does Acid Dissolve Oil?