Centrifugation separates materials through spinning in a cylindrical chamber, used in various industries such as laboratory, manufacturing, and food processing. Different designs are used to separate materials based on density, and it is expensive due to unique requirements for each industry. Centrifugal casting uses this process to create more reliable products.
Centrifugation is a process in which a material is spun in a cylindrical chamber that rotates around a fixed axis to use both the processes of settling and the force of centripetal acceleration to mechanically separate mixed materials from each other. Although centrifuges are used in a laboratory setting to purify biological samples and in large numbers to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel, they are also common in manufacturing for many purposes, including wastewater treatment by municipalities and for the production of drugs or live vaccine drug cultures. Other common manufacturing areas that use centrifugation are the food processing industry, mining and mineral processing, and general chemical processing.
The spinning of materials by centrifugal force causes mixtures of materials with different densities to separate in two basic ways. Heavier or denser materials gravitate towards both the bottom of the centrifuge and the outside wall of the drum, while lighter materials are less affected by centrifugal force and remain closer to the center of the spinning shaft where they can be removed during the process of spinning . In food purification and manufacturing, centrifugation is commonly used to separate sugar crystals from a mother liquor material produced earlier in the refining. Centrifuges are also widely used in the dairy industry to transform raw milk into cream and milk with less fat than the original product.
Where centrifugation is used to separate thick solids from mother liquors or similar liquids from each other, they rotate with such a force that they overcome the force of gravity by a factor of 1,000 to 20,000 times. These types of centrifuges can be built to one of six types of designs, including hydroclone, tubular, and chamber chamber designs that use settling properties to separate materials. The airless basket, disc separator, and decanter designs all require manual or mechanical removal of lighter materials once separated from denser compounds. Regardless of centrifuge design, however, all models use settling or a filter screen as in the perforated basket model to isolate materials from each other.
It is estimated that as of 2000 there are approximately 2011 specific industries for which centrifugation is required. Because each of these industries has unique requirements, centrifuges cannot be mass-produced like other common mechanical equipment such as motors or valves. This makes centrifuge equipment more expensive than other types of industrial hardware and often cannot be reused or resold for other purposes.
Centrifugal casting, for example, requires special metal melting equipment that can withstand the temperatures of molten metals and other crystalline materials such as iron, copper, and glass. The casting molds themselves are spun within the center of the centrifuge around their principal axis, while the liquid metal is introduced and hurled against the walls of the mold where it solidifies. This process forces the lighter impurities in the metal to the inner surface of the die, which can later be abraded to create a more reliable and durable product.
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