A solid–solid extraction

When a vessel containing two equal-sized particle species is subjected to vibration with an acceleration significantly greater than 1g, the particle bed sometimes separates into two clear-cut layers, the bottom layer consisting only of the lighter particles. This paper shows that the above inverse density segregation can be used to perform a solid–solid extraction. A mixture of equal-sized glass and steel beads (1290 μm in mean diameter) did not separate into two layers under vibration. However, when equal-sized lead beads were added to the mixture and the three-component mixture was subjected to vibration the bed separated into two clear-cut layers, the top layer being the mixture of the three components, the bottom layer consisting only of glass beads. The scale effect and the underlying mechanisms of this solid–solid extraction are discussed.