ABSTRACT
Physical separation is a process that primarily depends on physical forces to accomplish the desired separations. This approach has been used in the food industry for many years to remove haze from wine and fruit juices or nectars, separate the protein of cheese whey into fractions that have different functional property, split foreign matter from whole or milled grains, and concentrate fruit juice without heat. Physical separations can be categorized into four groups: sedimentation, centrifugation, filtration, and sieving. In the first method, two immiscible liquids (or a liquid and a solid) are separated by allowing gravity to produce an equilibrium (the heavier material will fall with respect to the lighter). Because sedimentation is often a slow process, it is often accelerated by applying centrifugal forces that increase the rate of sedimentation. This is called centrifugation or centrifugal separation. Filtration is a type of separation that stops solid particles but allows the passage of liquid, and sieving is the classification of solid particles according to diameter. This laboratory exercise will focus on centrifugal separation and sieving analyses.
