A sieve, or sifter, is a device for separating wanted elements from

unwanted material or for characterizing the particle size distribution of

a sample, typically using a woven screen such as a mesh or net or
metal.[1] The word "sift" derives from "sieve". In cooking, a sifter is used
to separate and break up clumps in dry ingredients such as flour, as well
as to aerate and combine them. A strainer is a form of sieve used to
separate solids from liquid.

Wind winnowing is an agricultural method developed by ancient

cultures for separating grain from chaff. It is also used to
remove weevils or other pests from stored grain. Threshing, the
loosening of grain or seeds from the husks and straw, is the step in
the chaff-removal process that comes before winnowing.

Sedimentation is the tendency for particles in suspension to settle

out of the fluid in which they are entrained and come to rest
against a barrier. This is due to their motion through the fluid in
response to the forces acting on them: these forces can be due
to gravity, centrifugal acceleration, or electromagnetism. In
geology, sedimentation is often used as the opposite of erosion,
i.e., the terminal end of sediment transport. In that sense, it
includes the termination of transport by saltation or true bedload
transport. Settling is the falling of suspended particles through the
liquid, whereas sedimentation is the termination of the settling process. In estuarine environments, settling can be
influenced by the presence or absence of vegetation. Trees such as mangroves are crucial to the attenuation of
waves or currents, promoting the settlement of suspended particles. [1]

Magnetism is a class of physical phenomena that are mediated by magnetic

fields. Electric currents and the magnetic moments of elementary particles
give rise to a magnetic field, which acts on other currents and magnetic
moments. The most familiar effects occur in ferromagnetic materials, which
are strongly attracted by magnetic fields and can be magnetized to become
permanent magnets, producing magnetic fields themselves. Only a few
substances are ferromagnetic; the most common ones
are iron, nickel and cobaltand their alloys. The prefix ferro- refers to iron,
because permanent magnetism was first observed in lodestone, a form of
natural iron ore called magnetite, Fe3O4.

Filtration is any of various mechanical, physical or biological operations that separate solids from fluids
(liquids or gases) by adding a medium through which only the fluid can pass. The fluid that passes through is called
the filtrate.[1] In physical filters oversize solids in the fluid are retained and in
biological filters particulates are trapped and ingested and metabolites are retained
and removed. However, the separation is not complete; solids will be contaminated
with some fluid and filtrate will contain fine particles (depending on the pore size,
filter thickness and biological activity). Filtration occurs both in nature and
in engineered systems; there are biological, geological, and industrial forms. For
example, in animals (including humans), renal filtration removes wastes from
the blood, and in water treatment and sewage treatment, undesirable constituents
are removed by absorption into a biological film grown on or in the filter medium, as
in slow sand filtration.

Crystallization is the (natural or artificial) process by

which a solid forms, where the atoms or molecules are
highly organized into a structure known as a crystal.
Some of the ways by which crystals form are
through precipitating from a solution, melting, or more
rarely deposition directly from a gas. Attributes of the
resulting crystal depend largely on factors such as
temperature, air pressure, and in the case of liquid
crystals, time of fluid evaporation.

Distillation is the process of separating the component or

substances from a liquid mixture by
selective evaporation and condensation. Distillation may result
in essentially complete separation (nearly pure components), or
it may be a partial separation that increases the concentration
of selected components of the mixture. In either case the
process exploits differences in the volatility of the mixture's
components. In industrial chemistry, distillation is a unit
operation of practically universal importance, but it is a physical
separation process and not a chemical reaction.

Hand picking :In our daily lives we come across so many situations in
which we have to separate some substances from a mixture in order to
get a suitable substance for use. Some of the substances are easily
separable just by taking out the impurities with hand. This method of
separation is known as handpicking. But some of them cannot be
removed by hand and we need some other methods of separation for
such mixtures.