Why is it impossible to perform a liquid-liquid extraction using h2o (water) and ch3oh (methanol) ?

they could be joined due to hydrogen bridge-type intermolecular interactions so no phase splitting will be carried out.

Explanation:

Hello,

Liquid-liquid extraction is a widely used separation operation that is suitable when relative volatilities are so close, so an extra substance is used to modify the equilibrium causing a phase splitting (two liquid immiscible phases) which could be leveraged to mechanically separate the two phases. The basic idea lies on the fact that the extra substance must be largely immiscible with the original solvent, to the solute is selectively separated, nonetheless, in this case, water and methanol are largely soluble to each other since they could be joined due to hydrogen bridge-type intermolecular interactions so no phase splitting will be carried out.

Best regards.

Solution : Water and Methanol are easily miscible in any amount. so they are not preferred for the liquid-liquid extraction process.

Liquid-Liquid Extraction is also called as solvent extraction. It is the method of seperation of compound based on their relative solubilities in two different immiscible liquids. Generally we use water (polar) and an organic solvent (non-polar).

It is important that the two solvents should not be mix because it is easy to seperate them.

Water and Methanol are easily miscible in any amount. we can not seperate them easily. So that is why we can not use water and methanol as a solvent in liquid-liquid extraction process.