We are independent & ad-supported. We may earn a commission for purchases made through our links.
Advertiser Disclosure
Our website is an independent, advertising-supported platform. We provide our content free of charge to our readers, and to keep it that way, we rely on revenue generated through advertisements and affiliate partnerships. This means that when you click on certain links on our site and make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn more.
How We Make Money
We sustain our operations through affiliate commissions and advertising. If you click on an affiliate link and make a purchase, we may receive a commission from the merchant at no additional cost to you. We also display advertisements on our website, which help generate revenue to support our work and keep our content free for readers. Our editorial team operates independently of our advertising and affiliate partnerships to ensure that our content remains unbiased and focused on providing you with the best information and recommendations based on thorough research and honest evaluations. To remain transparent, we’ve provided a list of our current affiliate partners here.
Manufacturing

Our Promise to you

Founded in 2002, our company has been a trusted resource for readers seeking informative and engaging content. Our dedication to quality remains unwavering—and will never change. We follow a strict editorial policy, ensuring that our content is authored by highly qualified professionals and edited by subject matter experts. This guarantees that everything we publish is objective, accurate, and trustworthy.

Over the years, we've refined our approach to cover a wide range of topics, providing readers with reliable and practical advice to enhance their knowledge and skills. That's why millions of readers turn to us each year. Join us in celebrating the joy of learning, guided by standards you can trust.

In Manufacturing, What Is Centrifuging?

By Ray Hawk
Updated: May 17, 2024
Views: 6,696
References
Share

Centrifuging is a process where a material is spun in a cylindrical chamber that rotates around a fixed axis to utilize both sedimentation processes and the force of centripetal acceleration to mechanically separate mixed materials from each other. Though 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 to process waste water by municipalities and to produce pharmaceuticals or live drug cultures such as vaccines. Other common manufacturing arenas that utilize centrifuging are the food processing industry, mining and mineral processing, and chemical processing in general.

Spinning materials via centrifugal force causes mixtures of materials with different densities to separate in two key ways. Heavier or denser materials gravitate both towards the bottom of the centrifuge and towards the outer wall of the cylinder, while lighter materials are less affected by the centrifugal force and stay closer to the center of the spinning axis where they can be removed during the spinning process. In food purification and manufacturing, centrifuging is commonly used to separate sugar crystals from a mother liquor material produced earlier in refining. Centrifuges are also widely used in the dairy industry to spin raw milk into cream and milk that is lower in fat than the original product.

Where centrifuging is used to separate dense solids from mother liquors or similar liquids from one another, they spin with such a force as to exceed the pull of gravity by a factor of 1,000 to 20,000 times. These types of centrifuges can be built upon one of six types of designs, including the hydroclone, tubular, and chamber bowl designs that utilize sedimentation properties to separate materials. The imperforate basket, disk stack separator, and decanter designs all require manual or mechanical removal of lighter materials once they are separated from denser compounds. Regardless of the centrifuge design, however, all models use either sedimentation or a filtering screen such as with the perforate basket model to isolate materials from each other.

There are estimated to be about 200 specific industrial fields for which centrifuging is needed as of 2011. Since 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 it often cannot be reused or resold for other purposes.

Centrifugal casting, for instance, requires special metal casting 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 main axis, as liquid metal is fed in and thrown against the walls of the mold where it solidifies. This process forces lighter impurities in the metal to the interior surface of the mold, which can later be abraded away to make a more reliable and durable product.

Share
About Mechanics is dedicated to providing accurate and trustworthy information. We carefully select reputable sources and employ a rigorous fact-checking process to maintain the highest standards. To learn more about our commitment to accuracy, read our editorial process.
Link to Sources
Discussion Comments
Share
https://www.aboutmechanics.com/in-manufacturing-what-is-centrifuging.htm
Copy this link
About Mechanics, in your inbox

Our latest articles, guides, and more, delivered daily.

About Mechanics, in your inbox

Our latest articles, guides, and more, delivered daily.