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Write Brief Answer · Q18

Q.Comment on the statement: 'Colloid is not a substance but a state of substance.'

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Step 1. Thomas Graham originally believed 'colloid' and 'crystalloid' described two fixed, distinct CLASSES of substance — glue-like materials were inherently colloidal, while sugar/urea/salt were inherently crystalloid, based on how they behaved in his diffusion experiments.

Step 2. It was later realised this original classification was mistaken: the colloidal or crystalloid behaviour observed was not an intrinsic property of the chemical substance at all, but simply a reflection of the PARTICLE SIZE at which that substance happened to be present.

Step 3. Virtually ANY substance — sugar, salt, gold, sulphur, and so on — can be converted into the colloidal state simply by reducing its particle size into the colloidal range (roughly 1 nm to 200 nm), using any of the dispersion or condensation methods covered in the chapter (mechanical dispersion, electro dispersion, ultrasonic dispersion, peptisation, oxidation, reduction, hydrolysis, and so on). …

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