MEAB AKUFVE - Model H -Liquid-Flow Centrifuge
The H-CENTRIFUGE is a specially designed liquid-flow centrifuge, which separates a mixture of two immiscible solvents very rapidly into two extremely pure phases. A liquid-flow centrifuge for absolute phase separation.
In applied research the AKUFVE instrument considerably reduces the time and labour in the evaluation and optimisation of solvent extraction processes. Its application to basic research have included the determination of distribution and stability constants for various metal complexes, together with enthalpy and entropy values, obtained from temperature dependency measurements and the determination of reaction rates and activation energies. In general, the AKUFVE system offers great advantages over more conventional techniques.
Based on the same mixer-(centrifugal)settler concept, some instruments are available. The AKUFVE-120 instrument is the main equipment for hydrometallurgical research. The ADMCS instrument is a smaller version of the AKUFVE-120 instrument and the SMCS unit is the single-stage mixer-(centrifugal)-settler unit, included in the Sl-SAK system, a small-scale multi-stage processing unit for e.g. production of antibi- otics and chemical separation of short-lived radioisotopes.
The heart of all these units is the continuous flow H-centrifuge. It is a unique centrifugal separator, developed to cover the requirement for rapid and absolute phase separation of a liquid mixture of two immiscible solvents (e g water and kerosene). The centrifuge, described in detail in the enclosed reprint, is characterised by a comparatively high speed of rotation (10-35.000 rpm), short hold-up time (0.05-2.5 sec), high liquid flow throughput (30-300 l/h) and extremely high phase separation efficiency, better than 99.9% in both phases.
The H-centrifuge was developed about 40 years ago and specially designed for solvent extraction research together with the AKUFVE instrument. At present, some hundred units have been installed in advanced research laboratories in many countries.
The H-centrifuge has been used for small-scale remote processing of very hazardous substances, where a one-step separation was sufficient owing to high chemical separation factors and the high separation efficiency of the Hcentrifuge. Multi-stage H-centrifuge batteries employing the H-10 version with electrical drive, have been developed for selective isolation of short-lived substances, as e.g. radioactive fission products with half-lives below 10 seconds. This so-called SISAK-system is now in operation in European nuclear research centers.