Centrifugal Process
The centrifuge relies on the force resulting from centripetal acceleration to separate molecules according to their mass, and can be applied to most fluids. The dense (heavier) molecules move towards the wall and the lighter ones remain close to the center. In addition, if one creates a thermal gradient in a perpendicular direction by keeping the top of the rotating column cool and the bottom hot, the resulting convection current carries the lighter molecules to the top while the heavier ones settle at the bottom, from which they can be continuously withdrawn.
In practice, several such centrifuges are connected in series. Each centrifuge receives one input and produces two output lines, corresponding to light and heavy fractions. The input of each centrifuge is the output (light) of the previous centrifuge and the output (heavy) of the following stage. This produces an almost pure light fraction from the output (light) of the first centrifuge and an almost pure heavy fraction from the output (heavy) of the last centrifuge.
Read more about this topic: Gas Centrifuge
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