Why Muffle Furnace is Important Part of Rubber Testing Lab?

For a newbie, muffle furnace may sound an unimportant instrument to have in the laboratory. I mean, what one would analyse from ash? But actually, it is one of the most important instruments and most interesting instrument in the testing laboratory of the rubber industry. When I say rubber industry, the most important use of rubber that comes into my mind is tires. The working conditions of tires are very strained, a lot of friction, uneven climatic conditions. Being a manufacturer of tires, you cannot restrict the intended use to limit its usage to certain conditions. So here, choosing the raw material for manufacturing becomes a crucial task. You definitely need some ash content in rubber but in a defined limit. Excessive ash content may lead to product failure. The quality of rubber is what makes or breaks a brand of tire.

What does a muffle furnace do?

A muffle furnace burns down the sample completely until it turns into ash. The ash content is weighed and compared with weight or original sample, to determine the percentage of ash. After burning down the sample, the organic contents will get changed into fumes and taken out.

The standard operating procedure of muffle furnace sound very easy, actually it is. But this is a very complicated machine. The temperature range of muffle furnace is very high, approx. 900°C or 1200°C or 1400°C. It makes choosing the right material for chamber a crucial task. Because there are very fewer materials that can withstand such a high range of temperature.

Second, sample collection is critical, any loss of ash may give inaccurate results. Which is why crucible boats are used to burn the samples and ash are weighed. The ash is weighed along with the crucible boats for accurate measurements. Presto Group offers 2 models of Muffle furnace, one is standard and one is computerised, digital model. Both models are provided with crucible boats and tongs as precautionary accessories.

Advantages of using Muffle furnace

It is very easy to use the machine and determining the results are pretty easy. It can work over a wide range of materials, as it has very high-temperature range. You can test, elastomers, rubber, ceramics, glass, etc. muffle furnace is used widely for research and education purpose. Apart from this, it is an important testing instrument in quality management labs. Testing the sample at initial stage would help in correcting the whole manufacturing line in the early stage thus helps in reducing errors and cost of rectification.