What is a laboratory furnace?

Laboratory Furnace is one of the equipments that is very practical and widely used in laboratories, and it is considered as a tool for conducting various types of general and specialized laboratories. This device is an inseparable and essential component in every laboratory, which has a special importance and efficiency.

This device is used to provide heat to a process or device that is supplied with heat from a reaction. The laboratory furnace is used for heating objects at high temperature, laboratory and research work, heating steel parts, etc.

Types of laboratory furnaces

Laboratory furnaces are divided into different categories based on design and performance, which we discuss below:

Electric furnaces

This device belongs to the laboratory furnace family. This device is very sensitive and expensive at the same time. But you can use it for long and uninterrupted hours. The electric furnace has an insulation of refractory cement, refractory cotton and refractory brick and can be used at different temperatures. You can buy these devices according to your needs, quality and resistance. Now we want to check how this device works. The reason for the name of this device is that the electric furnace has a body made of oil sheets and its body is covered with electrostatic paint. It also has the ability to install a digital timer.
These furnaces are available in two models with temperatures of 1100 and 1500 degrees Celsius and can be used for different purposes.

Induction Furnace:

Induction furnace is a type of electric furnace that can melt metal with the driving agent of alternating current to the coil that is wrapped around the melting material. When the alternating current passes through the copper coil around the furnace, a magnetic field is created inside the coil, which causes an electric current to occur in the core due to the impact of this magnetic field on the scrap surface inside the furnace that makes the core. The induced electric current passing through the core of the furnace, which has electrical resistance, causes heat generation in these furnaces since there is no spark or combustion, the temperature of the material will not go higher than the temperature required to melt it. In these furnaces, the speed of reaching the required temperature is high.

This method is clean (without pollution), with high energy efficiency and the heating process can be easily controlled. Due to the absence of oxidizing gas and flame, we will not have pollution and oxidation.

These types of furnaces are used for melting and keeping molten metal.

Electric arc furnace:

This method produces heat by using the heat produced by the electric arc created by carbon electrodes.

These furnaces make a lot of noise when working. They have the ability to increase and decrease the temperature very quickly. They produce a lot of smoke and debris and have the ability to produce heat close to 3500 degrees Celsius.

radiant furnace:

In these furnaces, there is a radiant wire that heats up when the current passes through it. As this wire heats up, the wire starts radiating thermal energy (mainly in the infrared range), which causes it to heat up when it hits the material inside the furnace. In this method, when the current passes, the wires heat up quickly and the radiation starts. This causes the sample to heat up at a high rate. This method is used for samples with small amounts that require high heating speed.

The material of these wires is mainly ceramic, quartz or tungsten quartz, which is determined depending on the temperature range used.

microwave oven

This oven is one of the ovens that work with microwave energy and is used to heat samples. The reason for the naming of this device was exactly the same. Compared to other ovens, the microwave oven provides more complete and uniform heating and is one of the most practical laboratory ovens.

ash furnace

This device is used to calculate the weight change of materials, removal of materials during cleaning, burning, and the like. It is also used to check various materials such as grain, food, coal, rubber, plastic, etc.
Since the ash-making furnace is used to measure ash, this device is called ash-making device.
Note: The maximum operating temperature of the device is 1100 degrees Celsius and the pid control maintains the temperature settings completely.

Tubular furnace

These furnaces are named tubular because their chambers are cylindrical and covered by heating elements. due to the design of this furnace, heating and cooling takes place faster; And sometimes they are also called high temperature furnaces. This is made possible by quartz tubes; When the quartz tubes reach the right temperature, they emit heat. This device is an electric heating device for purifying organic and inorganic compounds.

Finally:

The element is a number of wires wrapped around a non-conducting cylinder. The basis of the work of the elements is that when a large electric current passes, the element shows electrical resistance and starts to heat up. The element used in the laboratory furnace must have a very high melting point due to its high heat tolerance. For this reason, most of the elements used in the furnace are made of ferro-aluminum alloy or nickel-chromium alloy.

• Elements up to 1200°C: use of high melting point alloys
• Elements up to 1600 degrees Celsius: SiC elements, these elements withstand the stresses caused by intermittent processes well and have a good lifespan.
• Elements up to 1800 degrees Celsius: MoSi2 elements are used for this temperature range.

Effective parameters in choosing a laboratory furnace

Now we are going to express the effective parameters in choosing a laboratory furnace. As you have seen above, we have introduced the types of laboratory furnaces and it has been determined what each of them is used for.

Now we want to see how we can choose the desired device according to our needs. There are various factors that are very important to choose a device. The first thing is what temperature range do you want to use this device for, the second thing is that many experiments require the introduction of a gas for the transport process, does what you want to do require an inert gas or not The third thing is what kind of device is more compatible with your work and which one do you need more. So you have seen that 3 points are very important in choosing a device and you should pay attention to all of them. Also, let’s say that the cost of buying all these devices will be different and each device is priced according to what it does.

In addition to the mentioned devices, there is also a device called a laboratory oven, which is used for drying and sterilization, and many businesses also use this device. This device is also widely used in medical services. (The ovens also have two models: vacuum oven and convection oven) We introduced this device to say that the laboratory oven is one of the widely used devices and is sometimes confused with ovens.