Laboratory ovens are commonly used ovens in several industries such as electronics, pharmaceuticals, material processing, etc, as well as for different process applications. Each of the processes usually has different results, so the ovens are mostly unique for each purpose like baking, curing, annealing, etc.
The Various Lab Oven Application Processes
Annealing: this application is used for heating glasses or steel to ensure the development of their ductility. The process is also applied in metallurgy, manufacturing of medical devices, and material science. These industries require the use of high-temperature ovens for each of the processes.
For example, the health industry uses the annealing process to anneal plastics to syringes and catheters. This process involves heating and cooling.
Drying: drying is the general use for laboratory ovens, it removes moisture from materials, samples, etc. Forced-air ovens, vacuum ovens, and gravity convection ovens are used in various industries such as environmental, clinical, and biological for standard drying.
These ovens remove moisture from samples while lowering the boiling point of water to ensure lab samples are dried at lower temperatures.
Baking: this process requires that the product in the oven is heated without dehumidification. In the likes of pharmaceutical, manufacturing, material science industries, gravity convection ovens are used to serve the baking process.
Curing: this is to harden the chemical elements in a substance, the process involves drying and baking. It is used in several industries such as polymer research like plastics and rubber, semiconductor industries, nanotech industry, epoxies manufacturing, glues, and so on.
For most lab ovens, the standard applications involve heating and drying glassware or autoclaving for the sterilization of lab supplies.
Lab ovens also serve the purpose of material testing to determine the tensile strength of the materials and the deformation, resilience of all sorts of manufactured materials.
Laboratory ovens' standard purpose includes the testing and troubleshooting of materials, samples, products.
Examples of the standard use for lab ovens include the following:
- Testing of solder strength in circuit boards.
- For measuring the prolonged lifespan of products through accelerated simulations.
- For burn-in testing to help in the detection of early defects in produced integrated circuits.
- For catalyzing a chemical reaction and altering chemical nature in advanced polymer through the curing process.
The specialized use for lab ovens is in the biological, forensic, and environmental labs/industries – natural science.
These are some of the examples of how laboratory ovens are used in natural sciences to aid in their research.
- Specially configured ovens are used in forensic labs for fingerprint development.
- While in biological labs, the gravity convection oven is used in removing microbiological contaminants from laboratory equipment. Also in biological labs, vacuum ovens are used to stick substrates to filter and other media surfaces.
- Environmental labs require the use of gravity convection and forced air ovens for the drying specimens. They usually need to dry and weigh specimens before and after they are dried to find out the moisture content the specimen had before drying.
What are the types of Laboratory Ovens?
When it comes to lab ovens, there are different types and they serve different purposes.
If you are trying to get one, then you should consider the kind of application you need the oven for.
There are gravity convection or mechanical convection ovens, high temperature, and vacuum ovens, typically used for specialized and general purposes.
These types of ovens also offer advanced security features.
While, in the clinical or pharmaceutical sector, these types of ovens are commonly used. Forced air, multipurpose ovens. Multipurpose ovens serve various purposes, they are versatile units, and these types of ovens have a fast recovery. They are most ideal for drying glassware.
Vacuum ovens are used for materials that require a stable atmospheric condition. Stainless steel cleanroom ovens meet the ISO 5 (class 100) compliance standards, and they are HEPA filtered.
There are different types of ovens, and they all have specific features that make them compatible for use in all sorts of industrial applications.
This means that you must pay attention to the details, and features of the oven and how it meets your requirements for a lab oven.