Matter Study Guide Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering states of matter, physical and chemical properties and changes, elements, compounds, mixtures, and separation techniques from the Matter Study Guide.

Solid

A form of matter that has a definite shape and volume.

Liquid

A form of matter that flows, has constant volume, and takes the shape of any container.

Gas

A form of matter that flows to take the shape of its container and fills the entire volume of the container.

Vapor

Refers to the gaseous state of a substance that is a solid or liquid.

Physical property

A characteristic of matter that can be observed or measured without changing anything.

Extensive Properties

Properties, such as mass, length, and volume, that are dependent on the amount of substance present.

Intensive Properties

Properties, such as density, that are independent of the amount of substance present.

Chemical property

The ability or inability of a substance to combine or change into one or more other substances.

Physical changes

A change that alters a substance without changing its composition.

Chemical changes

A process that involves one or more substances changing into a new substance.

Element

A pure substance that can not be broken down into simpler substances by chemical and/or physical means.

Periods

Horizontal rows in the grid of the periodic table used to organize elements.

Compound

A substance made up of two or more elements that are combined chemically in a fixed ratio, which can be broken down into simpler substances by chemical means.

Mixture

A combination of two or more pure substances in which each substance retains individual properties.

Heterogeneous mixture

A mixture made up of parts or things that are different from each other and not the same throughout.

Homogeneous mixture

Also known as a solution, a mixture that has a constant composition throughout and always has the same phase.

Filtration

The process of separating mixtures that uses a porous barrier that separates a solid from a liquid in a heterogeneous mixture.

Distillation

A physical process that separates homogeneous mixtures based on differences in the boiling points of the substances involved.

Sublimation

A process in which a solid changes to a vapor without melting, which can separate two solids in a mixture when one sublimates but the other does not.

Chromatography

A process that separates the components of a mixture dissolved in either a gas or a liquid based on the ability of each component to travel across the surface.

Crystallization

A separation technique that forms pure solid particles of a substance from a solution containing the dissolved substance.