The separation of particles from liquids represents a cross-sectional technology, which touches nearly every industrial process, our personal life and the environment. It is obvious, that very different separation principles and a huge variety of highly specialized apparatuses are needed to solve all separation problems in such different areas of application. Looking to the history of apparatus development one can observe several interesting analogies to evolutionary processes in biology. Motivation for development of new separation technology normally is a preferably urgent need to solve a separation problem and the pressure to be successful on the market. To be successful a new concept must offer advantages in comparison to competing solutions. In contrast to nature the creative “genius” of the engineer in combination with advanced knowledge makes new developments more targeted and faster. Some evolutionary aspects of separation technology will be discussed in the example of filters and centrifuges. According to actual trends latest developments are demonstrated and some future prospects are pointed out.

从液体中分离颗粒代表了一种横截面技术，几乎涉及到每个工业过程，我们的个人生活和环境。显然，需要非常不同的分离原理和各种各样的高度专业化的设备来解决在这种不同应用领域中的所有分离问题。纵观仪器开发的历史，可以观察到一些有趣的类比生物学进化过程。解决分离问题和在市场上获得成功的压力通常是迫切需要开发新的分离技术的动力。与其他竞争解决方案相比，新概念要取得成功，必须具有优势。与自然形成鲜明对比的是，工程师具有创造力的“天才”与先进的知识相结合，使新的开发工作更具针对性和速度。分离技术的一些进化方面将在过滤器和离心机的示例中进行讨论。根据实际趋势，展示了最新的发展，并指出了一些未来的前景。