Given a homogenous liquid mixture of sodium chloride (salt) and water, what would be the best method to separate these substances? Explain this process.

Question

aaronq · Answer

Distillation. Heat up the mixture and capture the water vapour (there are several ways of doing this, easy inexpensive way: hover a plastic surface (e.g. plastic bag) about 40 cm from the pot angled downwards (which vapour will condense on then flow downwards) into a separate container), after all water evaporates, there will only be NaCl left (NaCl has a really high BP) in the pot. 

Or if you don't care about retaining the water, leave the container out for a few days (given that it's warm enough for the water to evaporate).