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photo of Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D.

Anne Marie's Chemistry Blog

By Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D., About.com Guide to Chemistry since 2001

Solutions, Suspensions, & Dispersions

Wednesday September 27, 2006
Do you know what solutions and suspensions are and how to tell them apart? Basically, solutions are homogeneous mixtures where the components stay mixed. The components of a suspension separate on their own, though you can mix them to make the substance homogeneous for a while. You can form a solution by dissolving sugar in water. You can form a suspension by stirring corn starch into water.

The particles in dispersions are intermediate in size between those of solutions and suspensions. Dispersions can remain evenly mixed, like suspensions, but dispersions exhibit the Tyndall effect, which means light passing through them will be scattered by the particles so that the light beam is visible.
Learn More | Liquids Magnets: Colloid Example

Comments

February 27, 2008 at 5:01 pm
(1) sara says:

can you put pictures dat show how its done?

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