Chemistry GCSE
Contamination
What Contamination means in Chemistry GCSE, as defined for AQA.
Definitions of Contamination
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Reference: AQA
A dirty wire gives a misleading colour, so the wire is cleaned with concentrated hydrochloric acid and heated until no colour is seen before each test.
Caused by a dirty wire and prevented by cleaning the wire between tests, which is different from masking within a mixture.
Topics that use Contamination
- Flame tests (AQA GCSE)
Related terms
- Characteristic flame colours of metal cations
- Evidence-based identification
- Interference between overlapping test results
- Masked
- Qualitative identification
- Qualitative identification by comparison with standards
- Blue glass
- Dominant emission
Using Contamination in the exam
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