In chemistry, separation science refers to the collection of techniques chemists use to isolate one material from another. These are roughly divided into two categories: mechanical and chemical. Some of the most common separation techniques are leaching, flotation, filtration, chromatography, and centrifugal force.

Leaching is something like making tea, where the separation consists of removing the tea essence from the tea leaves. In this example, the tea leaves would be put in a container and then be flooded with a solvent (hot water). The solvent would separate, or "leach out," the target substance by percolating through the original substance. A chemical separation method, leaching works mainly to isolate soluble materials from a solid mixture.

Flotation is a separation technique that allows the isolation of powdered mineral ore particles. It is especially useful and economical for separating metals from low-grade ores. With flotation, particles are literally floated...