Year 7
Year 8
Year 9
Year 10
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Remember the old
experiment where you tie a rope on the handle of a bucket half-filled with
water and swing the bucket around your head holding onto the rope?
Unless the rope or handle breaks, you don't get wet.
The water is pushed into the bottom of the bucket by a force
greater than gravity, and so it stays there.
This is how centrifugation
works.
Spin dryers in washing machines and juice extractors use
the same idea.
In the laboratory, you can use a hand centrifuge
to separate sediments from liquids.
After centrifuging, you can carefully pour or
decant the liquid away from the sediment. However, you have to
be very carefull not to re-mix the sediment with the fluid. Usually it is
better to use a Pasteur pipette to suck the liquid off. |
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