How is it possible to dry or heat treat something without using an overwhelming amount of heat? The answer to this strange question is the humble vacuum oven. Vacuum ovens work very differently than standard ovens, but these differences drive their usefulness. Medical professionals and engineers use vacuum ovens on equipment that cannot to handle the excessive heat of a normal oven (could cause them to degrade). To help you understand what vacuum ovens are used for, continue reading below.
Medical Devices
Why would a medical device need to be put into an oven of any kind? There are several reasons, and chief among them is the need to sterilize equipment before using it. No matter how clean the manufacturing process is, end-users still use vacuum ovens to purge any trapped chemicals in the product or evaporate any water to decrease the product’s humidity. Because these items tend to be made from very delicate, heat-sensitive materials, experts choose to use vacuum ovens to remove or kill any pathogens that may still linger on the equipment.
Electronics
Understanding what a vacuum oven is for means understanding the need to delicately separate one element from another. For example, in the process of creating printed circuit boards, vacuum ovens are used to separate moisture from the delicate components without exposing them to harmful heat. This means vacuum ovens are used to cure epoxy coatings and remove water from moisture-laden electronics. Vacuum ovens can be used on phones or watches that have accumulated too much water to remove the moisture without damaging the electronic components.
Aerospace Manufacturing
While we can’t create a perfect vacuum here on Earth, we can get very close. This is especially useful to aerospace engineers who need to see how certain items will react to the presence of high vacuum pressure. The parts that make up a self-assembling satellite, for instance, must work correctly in a vacuum if the satellite is to deploy successfully. Vacuum ovens are also used to cure anything that engineers send into space. Without this crucial step, they run the risk of every component off-gassing when it hits a real vacuum, which can cause an untold number of unpredictable problems.
Bonus use case! Large vacuum ovens are used in the food industry to slowly dry moisture out of certain foods to optimize texture or aid in preservation. Do you have any good use cases to share? Let us know.
If you’ve been looking for a vacuum oven for sale, you’ve come to the right place. DigiVac sells vacuum ovens that you can trust to get your specific job done right. If you have any questions about our products, please don’t hesitate to give us a call.
