Spheric touts energy saving microwave furnaces

Microwave technology may be best known for heating up your leftovers, but according to Phoenix-based Spheric Technologies it also has the potential to revolutionise the ceramics and heavy manufacturing sectors while slashing the amount of energy used by industrial furnaces.

The company, the North American distributor for Chinese firm Syno-Therm, can cut the energy used in a gas-fired oven by up to 80 per cent using its microwave-based furnace, said CEO Joseph Hines.

"Microwaves don't expend energy heating the vessel in which the heating is going on," he said, explaining that the microwaves heat only the material in the furnace, rather than the surrounding air or the furnace's walls. "It's just like your microwave oven at home, but it's scaled up several times."

Manufacturers create ceramic or metallic objects by taking powdered metal or ceramics and pressing them together into moulds. They traditionally heated these moulds in a furnace to create a solid object from the powder, in a process known as sintering. Now, Spheric is doing the same thing using microwave ovens.

Hines added that in addition to reducing energy use microwave furnaces were also easier to manage than their conventional counterparts. "In microwave furnaces, you don't have an exhaust problem," he said. "[In contrast], you have to vent gas furnaces. You have to supply new air, and you're generating carbon monoxide. "

Hines predicted that the technology will be widely adopted by US ceramic firms and other manufacturers who are coming under increasing pressure to tackle rising energy costs. "Political, public and investor demand for greener industrial operations is already shifting corporate spending and retooling priorities," he explained. "Further, significant advances in the production of high-value metal powders like titanium are dramatically lowering their cost, making microwave sintering of these materials an affordable and highly desirable production method."

Hines added that the system also has utility in mining, where it is used to pre-heat ore such as copper, making it easier to crack.

A microwave furnace from Spheric Technologies big enough to take something the size of a ceramic toilet would cost $600,000 to $700,000. The company is currently selling into North and South America and has no firm timeline for a European launch.