can someone explain what precipitation in chemistry is and the process in simple english please

Question

🙂

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

Sometimes after you put liquid in a container, solid stuff “fall” out of the liquid and settle on the bottom of the container. That solid stuff is the “precipitate”.

There are several causes. The one you see most often in chemistry class is due to a chemical reaction. Two liquids are mixed and a reaction occurs to create a product which is not soluble so it falls to the bottom of the container. You can also get preciptate due to other reasons. Something might lose solubility for some reason, like a temperature change, or maybe even just time (like the powder at the bottom of a snow globe).