microwave temperatures

From:Steven Slap

Hi Histonetters!

Bob Richmond asked whether the temperatures in the microwave calibration
procedures were in Celcius or Fahrenheit.  They are in degrees Celcius.

The procedure was published in its simplified form in Login & Dvorak's The
Microwave Toolbook, A Practical Guide for Microscopists, 1994, Boston, Beth
Israel Hospital and, originally, in a more sophisticated form, in Kingston,
H.M.S., et. al., Environmental Microwave Sample Preparation:  Fundamentals,
Methods and Applications, in Microwave-Enhanced Chemistry; Fundamentals,
sample preparation and applications, H.M.S. Kingston and S.J. Haswell,
editors, 1997, American Chemical Society: Washington, DC. pp 223-349.

35 is a constant to convert between calories and power.

Abizar Lakdawalla mentioned that there may, in fact, be a kitchen microwave
which does not use cycled power.  I remember seeing such appliances once in
the UK which were patented by Sharp.  However, I believe that Melissa
Jensen's problem was caused by the phenomenon of long duty cycles, which
would be the case in all but a rare few kitchen microwaves (laboratory
microwaves usually have duty cycles of 2 seconds, such that the heating and
cooling effect is insignificant).

To Dawn Schneider, who just bought the new Energy Beam microwave, Skip Brown
or someone at Sigma should be able to provide a slide dring protocol which
was developed for this microwave.  However, due to the inherent uneven
distribution of microwave heating within any microwave cavity, I have always
maintained that slide drying is a poor use of a laboratory microwave, and I
encourage my own customers to invest in a non-microwave slide dryer, like
Mopec's.

best regards,
Steven Slap
**********************************************
Marketing Manager/Microwave Product Specialist
Hacker Instruments & Industries, Inc.
http://www.hackerinstruments.com
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