Here is Your Ultimate Guide to Laboratory Vacuum Ovens

Laboratories need multiple pieces of equipment at once, and laboratory vacuum ovens play a very important role in them. With the help of these ovens, one can achieve uniform heating throughout the units. They are primarily used for polyimide baking, sterilizing, die-bond curing as well as annealing.

What are the ovens used for?

Vacuum ovens are ideally used for the removal of any solvents that are trapped inside the water and gas molecules and other volatile components arising from the temperature-sensitive products. Lab vacuum ovens also find their usage for samples that are difficult to dry like powder or granular samples. These ovens perform very high precision functions. These include some fixed temperature, auto start and auto stop, quick auto stops and other programs for their enhanced performance. These multi-purpose ovens have a temperature range of 40-240 degrees Celsius.

How does vacuum drying work?

The key component of the vacuum oven is the vacuum chamber. The main function of this chamber is to reduce pressure. This lowered pressure is able to reduce the boiling point of the substances inside and enables the liquids to evaporate easily at lower temperatures. This ensures that the loss of compounds is controlled.

What is the difference between a hot air oven and a vacuum oven?

The method used for the drying process is the main difference between the hot air oven and the vacuum oven. A vacuum oven uses the vacuum pumping process to remove any air present during the heating process. The hot air oven simply heats the samples by natural or forced hot air circulation. The convection ovens blast the air using cycles of air circulation to dry the products that are inside. Hot air ovens are mostly used for general heating and drying applications, but vacuum ovens are needed for outgassing, desiccating and determination of moisture and drying processes.

What are the advantages of laboratory vacuum ovens?

There are multiple advantages to using a laboratory vacuum oven. 

• These ovens are best for drying the temperature-sensitive substances. 
• They can also efficiently dry substances, like powders or grains, that cannot be dried easily.
• These ovens shorten the overall drying time, as a result, there is no possibility of thermal explosion of oxides inside them.

So, the above guide will come in handy for you when you are out to buy the vacuum ovens. You can try out LeDab vacuum ovens that are designed with precision to suit your different lab requirements.