Heat-treating furnace

Abstract

A heat treating furnace capable of continuously performing binder removal and subsequent firing without requiring a complicated configuration and increasing the equipment size and cost, for example, for degreasing a ceramic molding which is to be fired in a process for manufacturing a ceramic electronic component. A heat insulator is disposed to surround a heat treatment region in a case, and a reflector is disposed between the inner wall of the case and the insulator in order to reflect heat transferred from the heat treatment region through the heat insulator. A module heater including a heater embedded in the insulator is used. As the reflector, there is used a reflector having a structure in which a plurality of thin plates is arranged so that the main surfaces are arranged in parallel to each other with a predetermined space between the adjacent main surfaces.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.