Radio-frequency and microwave-assisted processing of materials

Abstract

There is described a hybrid furnace comprising a microwave source, an enclosure for the confinement of both microwave and RF energy and for containing an object to be heated, and means for coupling the microwave source to the enclosure. The furnace further comprises an RF source, means for coupling the RF source to the enclosure, and a control means for controlling the quantity of microwave energy and RF energy to which the object to be heated is exposed. There is also described a method of operating a furnace of the above type comprising the steps of actuating the microwave source to heat the object and actuating the RF source to provide an oscillating electric field within the object to be heated at a location and/or at a temperature where the field strength of the microwave-induced electric field falls below a predetermined threshold value.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.