Month: January 2018

Calcining (also known as calcination) can be defined as the heating to high temperatures in the presence of oxygen or air, or it can be the heat treatment process of inducing thermal decomposition. Thermal decomposition is achieved using calcining by placing a sample in an absence or limited supply of air or oxygen. The main objectives of a calcination furnace are to drive off water that is present as absorbed moisture, to drive off volatile constituents such as carbon dioxide, or to oxidize part of, or the entire substance. Calcining is carried out in a range of instruments, including industrial…

A Bridgman furnace is an industrial furnace used specifically for crystal growth. It uses a specific technique developed by Percy Williams Bridgman, a Harvard physicist. This blog post will discuss the method used in a Bridgman furnace and its applications. The Bridgman Method Within a Bridgman furnace, there is a distinct temperature gradient, and a crucible containing the pre-synthesized material is slowly transferred along the axis of this temperature gradient. As the material melts through the decreasing temperatures it forms a single crystal. In a similar technique called the Stockbarger method, that’s name is often used interchangeably with the Bridgman…

An industrial oven is an instrument used by many different industries, including food production, pharmaceutical, and electronics. These ovens have a heated chamber that is used to perform many different heat treatment processes and a range of increasing temperatures. Industrial ovens can be built to be extremely large and bulky, which can take up a lot of space in the laboratory and their size can also make the oven inefficient. This blog post will look at the benefit of using benchtop industrial ovens as an alternative to bulky upright ovens. Using Benchtop Industrial Ovens Any benchtop instrument is one that…