“Running Reactions by Spinning Them” in Chemical & Engineering News (member access required for full article) describes how a centrifuge with immiscible solvents of different densities can run different steps of a chemical reaction without the need for separate pieces of process equipment. For example, a nonpolar reagent in a nonpolar solvent could be converted into a salt to move it into a neighboring aqueous layer. This is a very innovative thought process that uses a concept that is, with the benefit of hindsight, extremely logical and obvious.