In solid/liquid separation processes, filter cake washing is an essential step in improving the quality of particulate products by elimination of impurities. During cake washing and dewatering, the cake saturation changes depending on the flow conditions and it cannot always be measured and controlled accurately, This article deals with investigations on the influence of the initial and temporal cake saturation on washing PVC and silica sand particles in the centrifugal field. It was found, that high initial saturation levels and high maximum saturations during the washing process had a positive impact in inducing a high hydrostatic pressure for advective flow and enabling a homogeneous distribution of the wash water inside the cake. This was achieved by increasing the wash water flux and/or decreasing the g-factor. A good method to obtain low final impurity quantity is the combination of washing at a low g-factor and dewatering at a high one. (c) 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 55: 650-662, 2009