What is a centrifuge and how does it work?

If you need to wash and dry your jeans in a hurry, you’ll be glad you have a centrifuge! Yes that’s what your clothes washer becomes when it spins at high speed to remove any water.

Small centrifuges are used in labs to separate blood products; you can find much bigger ones in aerospace-labs.

What exactly is a centrifuge?

Hold something heavy in one hand and whirl your arm around your head. Feel a force that seems to be pulling your shoulder out of its socket? That's the principle of the centrifuge at work—and you can look at it from two different angles.

In popular books and magazines, people talk about something called centrifugal force: the force that seems to make things shoot outward when they go round in a circle. So, when a bus goes around a bend at high speed, you'll read that it's centrifugal force trying to tip the thing over. 

When your clothes are spinning in a clothes washer drum, it’s centrifugal force that throws the water out through the little holes so your washing ends up much drier.

How exactly does it work?

1. Make a counterbalance for the centrifuge tube you want to put in the centrifuge. The masses, not volumes, of the tubes should be as close as possible! Unbalanced tubes may permanently damage the centrifuge.

2. Put the tubes opposite each other in the centrifuge. If you have more than two tubes, only the ones opposite each other have to be equal in mass.

3. Enter your settings such as rotations per minute.

4. Remove the tubes carefully after the centrifuge has completely stopped spinning. This is so that the different suspensions do not mix again.

Centrifuges are important machines used in laboratories, medical facilities and industries. Order one today from Supply Doctor!