Lol, I know, I’ve been kinda a dick on here lately so I figured I’d slow my roll.
I wrote a nasty little reply saying hes an idiot for wasting his time, but changed my mind…
Should just called em an idiot.
Just remember “I think its smart until proven it’s not”, Is not an appropriate approach to all matters. Be Safe
I guess the next step is try it and come up with a repeatable SOP for doing so? Maybe run some experiments with the media before and after to see how much water weight can be adsorbed, then removed. Maybe even do a side by side test.
My only concern, is aren’t some of the medias activated by heat or are they activated by other means? I would be worried the microwave would potentially change some characteristics of the media, but I’m nowhere near that level of understanding so I could be wrong in my thinking.
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I think you’d definitely do a small round each time, I’d be hesitant to just stick a bowl of powders in a microwave for 10 minutes and walk away. I don’t think you’re getting things that hot that way.
More like how you steam a bun really quick, 15 second bursts.
I have some silica with indicator beads mixed in that are used up, I’m gonna play around with em.
And yes, always be safe, I’d say things like this are ok to think outside the box. But with anything dealing with safety, use proper, known, protocols.
this was more of just a reference for looking at new methods and accepting new tek lol
I agree, when diving into the great unknown especially with pressurized systems and solvents, safety is always the best bet
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What’s something to keep in mind here is that the knowledge level of everyone is all over. Everything from trained chemists, to total noobs.
I’m a layman, but would like to think I’ve done a decent job of learning, but we’ve all seen some pretty low information users here asking some basic stuff that makes you wince lol.
Just a general point, that wasn’t to anyone in particular.
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yeah this is how I would approach it too. Experimentation is key!
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Is there a chance materials like alumina might react similar to metal in a microwave?
That is a good question, mainly I was thinking b80, I didn’t think of that media or if it would react like metal.
I have some of that as well, you got me curious. If it does spark, I’ll know right away. Can’t be any worse that popping a fork or some foil in there, which I’ve done on accident before. And watching bulbs pop or cd fry in the nuker back in the day, I seriously doubt any catastrophic stuff happening.
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I’d agree should be similar to a fork. Maybe try a tiny scoop of questionable powders in a container to see how it reacts to microwaves.
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For reference I’ve done b80 s55 and dryer beads like this with success… I do 50, to 75% power…
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My runs are small any how, each batch I’m not using anymore than 40g of powder total. So for me this would probably work nicely.
It’s kinda silly but I’m trying to calculate the total energy used in all of these processes and see where I can reduce it. When I think of how much energy I use doing this as a hobby I get a little guilty, so if I can reduce my footprint and find something new to try, I’m all for it.
Excellent, I was thinking of using reduced power as well.
Thanks for the input!
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nice tip about the beads, I was wondering if they could be dried like that
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$30 dedicated toaster oven. Can make a mess without caring, can set timer so it dings when a batch is done. I get great flow rates with powders dried at 350 for 60min (b80) and no signs of moisture even when I know the starting powder is moist. I fit maybe 10 cups in a Pyrex.
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I’m all about the nuker still haha, we replaced ours, so I took the old one and cleaned it out to use.
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I thought this was a interesting indicator of how dry my powders are. My oven has heated shelves. I used the top shelf for powder And the rest are turned off. the glass clearly shows the moisture. 350f and I’m wiping the glass clean of dripping moisture ever hour and it refills. This is the 3rd hour and it’s still very moist.
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I do the same thing in the nuker, keep going in 30 second intervals until no more steam in the microwave and no more is visibly coming off the powders.
Takes a few rounds and it’s pretty crazy how much water it holds.
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I’d assume that the big benefit of using a vacuum oven is that you’re evacuating the moisture as it evaporates from the media. Also microwaves transfer heat to water faster than it can evaporate. This means that your media is going to get hotter and do so faster when in contact with microwaves versus broiling it in a standard oven.
A vacuum atmosphere is gonna lower the boiling point, which increases the rate of evaporation so it’ll speed shit up but just a regular microwave is sufficient. All depends on how valuable your time is.
A little diy induction furnace/kiln is probably the way to go tho, real easy to rig one up just gotta be careful not to melt your media into a rock lol.
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I wonder why when drying my mol sieve beads… it never gets that moist