A mixture of two or more liquids?

Answer 1

It can be one of three things--a solution, an emulsion or a suspension.

If one liquid will dissolve into the other, the mixture is a solution. Go to the kitchen and get the cider vinegar out. Put a little bit into water, and you will have a solution because the two liquids won't separate on their own. You could do this with any kind of vinegar, but I chose cider vinegar because it's very inexpensive and a different color than water is. If you tried this with your mom's $25 bottle of balsamic vinegar, she'd go off on you.


You have an emulsion when you can't dissolve one liquid into the other. This you probably don't have to make on your own: Think of Italian dressing. When you get it, the vinegar and spices are at the bottom, the oil's floating on top of it. When you shake it up, the oil will form little globules that will disperse into the vinegar--but let it sit a little while, and the two will separate again. In its shaken form, you have an emulsion.


A suspension is a permanent emulsion. Think of homogenized milk. They make it by shaking milk so hard, the fat breaks into globules so small they can't separate out.


Given this, it's possible to turn an emulsion into a solution through the use of a mutual solvent. You have some oil you'd like to dissolve in water. You know water is extremely soluble in diethylene glycol, and oil is soluble in diethylene glycol, so you put oil, water and DEG into a container. The water will dissolve in the DEG, the oil will dissolve in it, and presto! a solution you couldn't have made any other way! Just keep in mind that DEG is highly lethal to any animal, including a person, who consumes it.

Answer 2

This mixture may be a homogeneous (a single phase) or nonhomogeneous (two or more phases) mixture.

Examples: wine, beer, gasoline, juice, etc.

Answer 3

This mixture may be homogeneous or heterogeneous.

Answer 4

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