Microwave Interaction with Matter

Review: The Use of Microwave Irradiation in the Processing of Glasses and Their Composites

“…These processes, which have been reviewed by Clark et al, , among other contributors, take advantage of the selective heating, large penetration depth (see Table ), and fast heating that microwave energy provides, in comparison to conventional heating methods. Recently, it has been demonstrated that microwave energy can be used to process many types of materials, − including organics, ceramics, polymers, glasses, sol−gels, metals, and composites; moreover, almost 30 years after the first reports on the interaction of microwaves with matter in 1962, the process of how materials absorb microwaves was successfully explained, in terms of a recent theory, which involves absorbing entities such as vacancies, bivacancies, or interstitials, which must overcome an energy barrier to absorb microwaves to a significant extent. This microwave preparation procedure, which is relatively novel in synthetic chemistry, is applicable when at least one of the components of the mixtures absorbs microwaves.…”