ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the range of hardware (centrifuges, rotors and tubes) which is currently available, describes good centrifuge practice for the general handling of rotors and tubes and discusses the relation between rotor type and the applications to which each rotor is most suited. The manufacturers provide extensive information with regard to solvent, salt and pH resistance, and provide sterilization procedures for centrifuge tubes; this information has also been summarized by Rickwood. Vertical and near-vertical rotors only use thin-walled sealed tubes. Sealed tubes are most commonly made from polyallomer but both Beckman-Coulter and Sorvall provide these sealed tubes in the transparent Ultraclear or polyethylene terephthalate, respectively. In the common four-place swinging buckets of low-speed or high-speed centrifuges the diametrically opposed pairs must contain tubes with liquid of the same density and volume but the material in one pair may be different to the other pair.
