Melting of tin using muffle furnace and microwave energy and its characterization

Conventional melting of metals consume significant amount of energy. Furthermore, there are possibilities of material and energy losses along with safety risks. To overcome these inherent disadvantages of conventional melting, a novel approach for melting of bulk tin using microwave energy is presented. In the present work, bulk Tin is melted using a conventional muffle furnace and a domestic multimode microwave oven. As received and as cast metals are characterised. X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) technique is used to analyse the phases present. The average tensile strength of the metal casted using muffle furnace and microwave oven is 44.1982 MPa and 50.2867 MPa respectively. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) is made use for the study of fractured surface of the tensile specimen, which reveals the areas of plastic deformation. Microwave processed specimen shows 10% higher tensile strength compared to that processed using muffle furnace. Radiography clearly shows cast specimen free from defects. The average hardness of as received tin is higher compared to casted specimens. However, the average hardness value of microwave processed specimen is 19.28% higher than the specimen processed using muffle furnace.