Colloid than colloids. 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
Chemistry: A Volatile History magnifying glass he managed to ignite a diamond sufficiently for it to produce a gas, which he collected and was able to identify as carbon dioxide. Having started with only diamond and oxygen, and produced a gas which contains only carbon and oxygen, Tennant had discovered that diamonds are made of carbon. Unaware of atomic theory at the time, scientists were unable to explain how carbon, already known to exist as one of the softest substances in the form of graphite, could also be the sole constituent element of the hardest known substance: diamond. Exactly 50 years later, a young