Tube furnace

A tube furnace is an electric heating device used to conduct syntheses and purifications of inorganic compounds and occasionally in organic synthesis.

Some digital temperature controllers provide an RS-232 interface, and permit the operator to program segments for uses like ramping, soaking, sintering, and more.

The tube furnace was invented in the first decade of the 20th century and was originally used to manufacture ceramic filaments for Nernst lamps and glowers.

A mixture of finely powdered CuO, BaO, and Y2O3, in the appropriate molar ratio, contained in a platinum or alumina "boat," is heated in a tube furnace at several hundred degrees under flowing oxygen.

[3] Because of the availability of tube furnaces, chemical vapor transport has become a popular technique not only in industry (see van Arkel–de Boer process) but also in the research laboratory.