Colloid Colloid In chemistry, a colloid is a mixture in which one substance of microscopically dispersed insoluble particles is suspended throughout another substance. Sometimes the dispersed substance alone is called the colloid; the term colloidal suspension refers unambiguously to the overall mixture (although a narrower sense of the word "suspension" is distinguished from colloids by larger particle size). Unlike a solution, whose solute and solvent constitute only one phase, a colloid has a dispersed phase (the suspended particles) and a continuous phase (the medium of suspension). To qualify as a colloid, the mixture must be one that does not settle or
Mass fraction (chemistry) Mass fraction (chemistry) In chemistry, the mass fraction formula_1 is the ratio of one substance with mass formula_2 to the mass of the total mixture formula_3, defined as The symbol formula_5 is also used to denote mass fraction. The sum of all the mass fractions is equal to 1: Mass fraction can also be expressed, with a denominator of 100, as percentage by mass (in commercial contexts often called "percentage by weight", abbreviated "wt%"; see mass versus weight). It is one way of expressing the composition of a mixture in a dimensionless size; mole fraction (percentage by moles, mol%) and