| Date: March 2, 1998 |  Chart 1 |
efrigeration is wonderful, especially when applied to centrifuges. Not only does refrigeration help maintain the stability of biological compounds whirling along at several thousand revolutions per minute, it also enables the use of higher speeds and g-forces. The friction encountered by a rotor spinning through the air in its chamber is enough to raise its temperature several degrees. Refrigeration counteracts this effect and thus expands the usefulness of centrifugation considerably. In this profile, LabConsumer takes a close look at refrigerated tabletop centrifuges. Best described as general-purpose instruments, these machines spin everything from microfuge tubes to 750 ml bottles, microscope slides, microplates, hematocrit tubes, and blood bags. They do so easily, often with a single rotor and a few simple bucket and adapter changes. Indeed, the workhorse swinging bucket rotors driven by these machines elegantly provide versatility and great usefulness. Coupled with their tabletop configurations, ...
