Chemical Equations and Mixtures - Making Sense of Reactions
Chemical equations are like recipes that show what happens during reactions. Reactants (the ingredients) go on the left side, and products (what you end up with) appear on the right. The brilliant thing is that atoms never disappear - the total mass stays exactly the same!
Mixtures are completely different from compounds because the substances just sit together without chemically bonding. Think of iron filings mixed with sulfur - the iron stays magnetic and the sulfur stays yellow because they keep their individual properties.
Physical separation methods help you split mixtures back apart: filtration catches solid bits, crystallisation grows crystals from solutions, distillation separates liquids, and chromatography splits up coloured substances. These methods work because you're not breaking any chemical bonds - just physically separating things that were mixed together.
Remember: If you can separate it without a chemical reaction, it's a mixture. If you need to break chemical bonds, it's a compound!