Will It Centrifuge? (part 3 - the Club Edition.)

It had to happen.

My science clubbers got wind of the centrifuge's existence, and demanded to have a go with their own samples. Some of them made their own mixtures, just to see if they could be separated by sheer force of gravity.

The samples got spun up in batches of four:

Batch 1:

• Hair gel mixed with pure blackcurrant juice (yellow tube)
• Mud, water, pencil shavings and washing up liquid (blue tube)
• Brown sauce (it's a British condiment) (orange tube)
• Salad cream (light pink tube)

Batch 2:

• Flour mixed with green food colouring, washing up liquid, water and rice mixed with blue food colouring. (green tube)
• Strawberry jam (with bits) (dark pink tube)
• Flour, water and green food colouring (orange tube)
• Raspberry jam (no bits) (light pink tube)

Batch 3:

• "American hot dog mustard" (yellow tube)
• Melted Margarine (blue tube) (melted by floating tube in hot water for a couple of minutes)
• Crunchy peanut butter (orange tube)
• Rice, water and blue food colouring (green tube)

I've posted each sample as "before" and "after", to make the changes (where they occur) more obvious.

The shot of the inside of the centrifuge shows a thin beige line - the clubber who filled the peanut butter tube didn't clean the outside of the tube properly, and slowing from 13,000rpm to stationary in a few centimetres mashed the debris evenly around the centrifuge's innards. Fortunately it wiped off easily.

Watch out for the margarine...

Need some backgound?
Part One
Part Two - Blood!
Original Forum Thread

And a "How To" Instructable is in the pipeline, I'm just waiting for some information.