Separation of charcoal/NaCl/CuCl2

Question

When provided with a solid mixture of charcoal, NaCl, CuCl2 and given only water and ethanol, how can you separate the three?

Answer 1

Both NaCl and CuCl2 are soluble in water but charcoal is not. CuCl2 is soluble in ethanol but NaCl is not (or only very slightly).

So first add water and dissolve the NaCl and CuCl2. Then filter leaving charcoal on the filter paper. Next you could evaporate the solution leaving solid NaCl + CuCl2. Add ethanol to dissolve the CuCl2 and centrifuge out the NaCl. Evaporate the ethanol solution to get solid CuCl2.