A laboratory technician turned science photographer has created a camera that lets us look inside the black box of a centrifuge as it spins samples. The videos are fascinating and, more importantly, show us fluid dynamics in a level of detail we have never seen before.

For now, Dutch inventor Maurice Meekers has turned his camera to familiar liquids like coffee, smoothies and hot sauce. But the centrifuge chamber can have all kinds of research applications, from studies of physics and genetics to food, sewage treatment and more.

Before taking up scientific photography, Mikkers worked as a laboratory assistant at the Dutch National Institute for Health and Environment, where he was involved in the diagnosis of parasites.

There Mikkers used the centrifuge countless times, but what went on inside the machine remained a black box mystery that the photographer inside always wanted to peek into.

“When I was working in the lab, I had only visual information about the sample ‘before centrifuge’ and ‘after centrifuge,’” Mikkers writes in an article published on Medium.

From scientific illustrations and animations, he theoretically knew what the process was: “However, I had never seen a direct image of the separation process,” he explains.

Meekers spent months trying to capture it himself, grappling with the technical challenges that arise when you try to mount a digital camera on a machine that’s spinning fast enough to create a force of 2,500 times the gravity of the Earth’s surface. For example, it does not affect. this and the recording equipment itself were also removed.

Centrifuges spin liquids at speeds that create intense centrifugal forces. The layers furthest from the center of the centrifuge are subjected to a stronger centrifugal force than the layers closer to the center because the circle they form in one rotation is much larger.

This affects the particles in the liquid differently depending on their density, causing the components to separate into uniform layers and the densest material to be attracted to the outermost point.

This technology is known to be used specifically to separate a blood sample into red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and plasma for analysis or donation. It is also used to extract DNA from cells. Since DNA has a lower density than other components of the cell, it rises to the top in the centrifuge.

This seemingly simple technique is the basis for nearly all genetic analysis and research, from mapping the genomes of species to detecting viruses, parasites and bacteria in the human body, to locating and even fine-tuning the codes that determine our physical characteristics.

Some fluids captured by Mikkers’ camera do not separate from each other but exhibit interesting fluid dynamics that have not been observed in this way before. For example, the “before and after” picture gives no hint of the fascinating swirls of shower gel subjected to a force of 2500 g.

Centrifuges have even been integrated into food science, and Mikkers’ video attracted the attention of fluid physicist Alvaro Martin of the University of Twente in the Netherlands, who discussed the footage in a presentation on kitchen fluid dynamics.

“The centrifuge camera video is surprising to any fluid dynamics expert because of the amount of motion present in much of the video, far from minutes of smooth separation motion,” says Martin.

So seeing what’s really going on inside this little spinning loop is hugely important for researchers in all fields—genetics, physics, art, and even sewage treatment.

Mikkers is currently collaborating with rheologist Lorenzo Botto of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands on a project called Sludgecam, which is investigating the potential application of this technology to recover valuable resources from sewage sludge.

When water is removed from sewers, what is left is a disgusting, foul-smelling and dangerous sludge that is increasingly recognized as a “gold vein” of nutrients and minerals, as well as synthetic materials such as polymers.

The goal of the project is to create a smart centrifuge chamber that will help wastewater treatment plant operators adapt the method of treating sludge based on what is actually in it.

“For the first time, researchers can see what’s happening inside a laboratory centrifuge as it spins, and this will provide many insights that can be applied not only to wastewater treatment but also to other applications such as biotechnology and food processing,” says Botto.