Sciencemadness Discussion Board

DIY centrifuge for liquid seperation (remove things like CaSO4)

RogueRose - 14-4-2018 at 15:53

Well I tried filtering some CaSO4 from an ammonia solution and it is a major PITA so I'm wondering if the best method to remove liquids from a solution with precipitates like CaSO4 might be using a centrifuge and I don't mean one that uses vials but one similar to how they clean old oil. I'm not sure if this kind of setup would work and the videos on how it works are a little difficult to determine the exact setup.

Here are some pages and videos of what I'm talking about.
http://www.simplecentrifuge.com/

This is a good video that shows how the centrifuge works for larger amounts like cleaning waste oil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsLGX-RbKuQ

Here is a DIY one made from an angle grinder motor. looks pretty good, needs a little work though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulu1epqMxco

I could see this being useful in a number of applications but kind of question if it would work well with any volitile liquids like alcohols or anything that vaporizes easily.

Sulaiman - 14-4-2018 at 23:12

A quick warning;
I have seen the destructive power of spinning masses,
if one of those solid centrifuge rotor blocks did come loose or shatter
I would not want to be in the same room.

P.S. The casing of the centrifuges pointed to looks OK for collecting fluids and keeping body parts out of the machine,
but I doubt that they would contain their rotors at full rpm.
I guesstimate 1 kJ kinetic energy for a 60 Hz induction motor
maybe 10 kJ or more if using an angle grinder. (a few grams of TNT)

[Edited on 15-4-2018 by Sulaiman]