I. Objectives
The objectives of this experiment are to determine the amount of residue in a specified
revolution per minute (rpm) of the centrifuge and to make a graph on the amount of residue vs.
rpm
II. Theory:
A rotor
A drive shaft
A motor
The rotor holds the tubes, bottles, or bags containing the liquids to be centrifuged.
Different rotor types and sizes, interchangeable with one another, can be mounted on the drive
shaft, which connects to the motor. The motor provides the power to turn the rotor.
Usually, a cabinet surrounds and supports these parts, and also protects the operator
should a tube break or any metal parts fail while the centrifuge is running. The operating
controls and indicator dials for speed and time are mounted on the cabinet. Most centrifuges
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have a brake system to bring the rotor to a standstill shortly after the run is finished.
Unlike the mechanical brakes on a car, the braking action is electrical; the current to the
motor is simply reversed. Many centrifuges are also refrigerated to prevent delicate biological
samples from getting warm.
Two forces counteract the centrifugal force acting on the suspended particles:
Buoyant force: This is the force with which the particles must displace the liquid
media into which they sediment.
Frictional force: This is the force generated by the particles as they migrate through
the solution.
Particles move away from the axis of rotation in a centrifugal field only when the centrifugal
force exceeds the counteracting buoyant and frictional forces resulting in sedimentation of the
particles at a constant rate.
Particles which differ in density, size or shape sediment at different rates. The rate of
sedimentation depends upon:
There are many ways in which centrifuges are used. More often than not they are used
to sediment some material leaving the rest in solution. However, one can also use two other
common applications for separating materials:
In the first case, the material is either layered on top of or mixed into some material
that can either be preformed into a density gradient or will become a density gradient when it is
spun at high speed. The centrifuge is then run until the material finds its place as a band of
particular density within the tube.
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The kinetic density methods also generally involve long runs that allow the molecule
to find a region of the medium with the same density and come to equilibrium. In kinetic
density sedimentation, you do not run the gradient to the end. You start with a band of you
sample on top of the tube and let it progress through the density gradient for some period of
time.
Chalk
Centrifuge
Analytical balance
Stirring rod
Beakers
Mortar and pestle
IV. Procedure:
The chalk was pulverized using mortar and pestle and 10 grams of it were weighed and
dissolved in 30 ml of water. After which, the solution was centrifuged for one minute with 500
rpm.
Lastly, we decant the water that have separated and weighed the residue. The same
procedure was done for 2nd and 3rd trial with 750 and 1000 rpm respectively.
V. Diagram:
Wt. of test
SPEED tube and Wt. of residue Time
TRIAL
(rpm) residue (grams) (min.)
(grams)
1 500 15.2184 1.7454 1
2 850 16.2844 2.8114 1
3 1000 18.2622 4.7892 1
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VII. Observation and Discussion of Results:
Chalk, also known as calcium carbonate (CaCO3), is a salt of carbonic acid. Its ions are
calcium (Ca2+) and carbonate (CO32-). If we know one thing about chalk in is that it doesn't
dissolve very well in water. This is because the solubility product between calcium and
carbonate is a very small number.
This is the reason that after we have dissolved the chalk in water we need to constantly
stir or agitate the solution so that chalk particles will not settle at the bottom of the glass ware.
In our experiment, we have observed that after the first minute of the chalk being
centrifuge under the speed of 500 rpm the chalk was completely separated from the water, only
two layers were seen, one for the chalk residue and the other for the supernatant which is water.
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VIII. Conclusion and Recommendation:
The graph projects an increasing trend which agrees to our conclusion. However,
there may be some inaccuracy in the comparison because although time was set as constant, the
mass of the sample was not.
We can recommend for the next experiment that the total mass of solution be taken
also as constant so that the only factor to be taken consideration for comparison is the speed in
rpm and some other properties be tested also like using different kind of samples with different
properties.
Centrifugation is also used to separate the curd of the milk in the production of cheese
and heavy or thick cream. It is also used in hospitals to separate the components of our blood
for analyzing our diseases.
X. References:
http://edusanjalbiochemist.blogspot.com/2012/11/principle-of-centrifugation.html
http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/enztech/centrifugation.html
www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Building_brewing_water_with...chalk
http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-centrifugation-definition-process-uses.html
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