The first day there wasn't much time to do anything, but I filtered the yellow stuff out of the mixture. I am pretty sure that it was sulfur. It didn't have much of an odor, but the mixture itself smelled like rubbing alcohol, isopropanol.
DAY 2.
On this day, I did fractional distillation of the liquid(s). The graph is on the attached sheet. From doing the distillation I noticed two plateaus. The first plateau was at 80 C, and the second was at 100 C. I wasn't positive on this day what the two liquids were, but I was guessing one was water and the other possibly isopropanol. Later I looked at past labs and got the boiling points of these liquids. Water's boiling point is 100 C, and isopropanol's is 80 C.
DAY 3.
On the third day, I boiled away the liquids in the mixture. It left me with a white substance. It didn't have much of an odor. It was kind of soft and powdery at first, and then it was hard. I thought that the substance might be either salt or sugar.
DAY 4.
On day four, I tested salt and sugar in isopropanol and water. In isopropanol neither sugar nor salt dissolved. In water, they both dissolved. Since the substance on the bottom of the "sludge" looked brown, and it didn't dissolve in the liquids, the substance couldn't be sugar or salt. After looking at it more, I realized it must be sand. .
DAY 5.
On the final day, I dissolved sugar in water, and boiled it away. It left a caramelized substance on the bottom. Then I did the same thing for salt. But, the salt left a white substance. It was powdery at first, and then hardened. I figured that salt must have been the substance dissolved in the "sludge.".
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Conclusion:.
After doing the tests, I came to the conclusion that the "sludge" consisted of water, isopropanol, sulfur, sand, and salt.
Soluble in Water Soluble in Isopropanol Color Odor Boiling Point.
Sugar yes no white none none.
Salt yes no white none none.
Sulfur no no yellow none none.
Isopropanol none none none alcohol 80 C.
