Microwave is a very robust and time efficient method of heating for the synthesis of numerous organic and inorganic products in the laboratory. Technology these days is highly advance for manufacturing these microwaves and provides lots of flexibility in terms of the reaction vessel, (pressurized or open), heating time, selective heating, etc. The best company I know and used their products in the past is CEM. You can find so many good information on their website and educate yourself. Few cents from my past experience:
1. Cannot heat all materials (solvents), only the microwave absorber like glycol, pyrolidine, alcohol etc.
2. We ourself modified the reaction vessel to synthesize our materials. Their reaction vessels pressurized several times leading to damage the temperature probe which is most delicate and expensive to replace. Here is the link for our paper to see:
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/nn30389183. Never do acid digestion especially mineral acids.
4. Never digest strong base, and highly reactive chemicals together.
5. Maintaining and handling temperature probe is important, selecting the right amount of reactants in the reaction vessels is another important factor.
Thank you.
Regards,
Naween Dahal, PhD
Sr. Laboratory Safety Specialist
The University of Texas at Austin
