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Heating Water in a Microwave Safety. It can be dangerous.

PARTY TENT CITY
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Welcome to my compendium website about Heating Water in a Microwave Safety. It can be dangerous.    Party Tent City website improvement consulting.
 

Important words found on this site.  Party Tent City website improvement consulting.
Heating Water in a Microwave Safety Oven, Danger, Liquid, Cup, handles,  Face, super-heated water,  High Voltage, Kitchen, Coffee Explosion, Pyrex, Melt,
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Subject: Heating Water in a Microwave

I feel that the following is information that any one who uses a microwave oven to heat water should be made aware of.
About five days ago, my 26 year old son decided to have a cup of instant coffee.

 He took a cup of water and put it in the microwave to heat it up (something that he had done numerous times before). I am not sure how long he set the timer for but he told me he wanted to bring the water to a boil. When the timer shut the oven off, he removed the cup from the oven. As he looked into the cup he noted that the water was not boiling but instantly the water in the cup "blew up" into his face. The cup remained intact until he threw it out of his hand but all the water had flew out into his face due to the buildup of energy.

His whole face is blistered and he has 1st  and 2nd degree burns to his face which may leave scarring.
He also may have lost partial sight in his left eye.

 While at the hospital, the doctor who was attending to him stated that this a fairly common occurrence and water (alone) should never be heated in a microwave oven. If water is heated in this manner, something should be placed in the cup to diffuse the energy such as a wooden stir stick, tea bag, etc. It is however a much safer choice to boil the water in a tea kettle.

Here is what our science teacher has to say on the matter: "Thanks for the microwave warning.
I have seen this happen before. It is caused by a phenomenon known as super heating. It can occur anytime water is heated and will particularly occur if the vessel that the water is heated in is new.
What happens is that the water heats faster than the vapor bubbles can form.

 If the cup is very new then it is unlikely to have small surface scratches inside it that provide a place for the bubbles to form. As the bubbles cannot form and release some of the heat that has built up, the liquid does not boil, and the liquid continues to heat up well past its boiling point. What then usually happens is that the liquid is bumped or jarred, which is just enough of a shock to cause the bubbles to rapidly form and expel the hot liquid. The rapid formation of bubbles is also why a carbonated beverage spews when opened after having been shaken


About five days ago, my 26 year old son decided to have a cup of instant coffee.

 He took a cup of water and put it in the microwave to heat it up (something that he had done numerous times before). I am not sure how long he set the timer for but he told me he wanted to bring the water to a boil. When the timer shut the oven off, he removed the cup from the oven. As he looked into the cup he noted that the water was not boiling but instantly the water in the cup "blew up" into his face. The cup remained intact until he threw it out of his hand but all the water had flew out into his face due to the buildup of energy.

His whole face is blistered and he has 1st  and 2nd degree burns to his face which may leave scarring.
He also may have lost partial sight in his left eye.

 While at the hospital, the doctor who was attending to him stated that this a fairly common occurrence and water (alone) should never be heated in a microwave oven. If water is heated in this manner, something should be placed in the cup to diffuse the energy such as a wooden stir stick, tea bag, etc. It is however a much safer choice to boil the water in a tea kettle.

Here is what our science teacher has to say on the matter: "Thanks for the microwave warning.
I have seen this happen before. It is caused by a phenomenon known as super heating. It can occur anytime water is heated and will particularly occur if the vessel that the water is heated in is new.
What happens is that the water heats faster than the vapor bubbles can form.

 If the cup is very new then it is unlikely to have small surface scratches inside it that provide a place for the bubbles to form. As the bubbles cannot form and release some of the heat that has built up, the liquid does not boil, and the liquid continues to heat up well past its boiling point. What then usually happens is that the liquid is bumped or jarred, which is just enough of a shock to cause the bubbles to rapidly form and expel the hot liquid. The rapid formation of bubbles is also why a carbonated beverage spews when opened after having been shaken

 

Superheated Water

March 10, 2004
Lou Ann Jopp
Regional Extension Educator, Food Science
Extension Regional Center, St. Cloud
Phone: (320) 203-6058 or (888) 241-4591
Email:
joppx001@umn.edu

Superheated water is extremely dangerous...people have been severely injured by such water

There have been reports of serious skin burns and scalding injuries around people’s hands and faces as a result of hot water erupting out of a cup after it had been over-heated in a microwave oven. Overheating of water in a cup can result in superheated water (past its boiling temperature) without appearing to boil. Superheating occurs if water is heated in a container that does not assist the formation of bubbles, which is a visual sign of boiling. Glass containers are the most likely to superheat water because their surfaces have few or no defects. The presence of slight defects, dirt, or other impurities usually help the water boil because bubbles will form on these imperfections. Adding materials such as instant coffee or sugar before heating greatly reduces the possibility of super heating.

Water does not always boil when it is heated above its normal boiling temperature of 100°C or 212°F.

Water can always evaporate into dry air, but it normally only does so at its surface. When water molecules leave the surface faster than they return, the quantity of liquid water gradually diminishes. That is ordinary evaporation. However, when water is heated to its boiling temperature, it can begin to evaporate not only from its surface, but also from within. If no bubbles are leaving the surface of the water as it is being heated to the boiling point, or above, steam bubbles may be forming inside the hot water. Water molecules then can evaporate into that steam bubble and make it grow larger and larger. When the water is disturbed in some way, it will boil violently. This may happen by inserting a fork or spoon into the water or striking the bottom of the container – and an explosion follows. When water is sufficiently superheated, all that is needed is just a single “seed” bubble to start an explosion and empty the container completely. This situation becomes even worse if the top surface of the water is “sealed” by a thin layer of oil or fat so that normal evaporation cannot occur.

Mild superheating happens fairly often and we rarely think much about it as we sponge up the spilled liquid inside the microwave oven. Severe superheating is less common but is a very dangerous phenomenon.

What Can Consumers Do to Avoid Super-Heated Water?

First: Follow the precautions and recommendations found in the microwave oven instruction manuals, specifically the heating time.

  • Do not use excessive amounts of time when heating water or liquids in the microwave oven.
  • Determine the best time setting to heat the water just to the desired temperature and use that time setting regularly.

If you really need to boil water, be very careful with it after microwaving or boil it on a stovetop instead. When you heat water on the stove, the hot spots at the bottom of the pot or defects in the pot bottom usually assist steam bubble formation so that boiling occurs soon after the boiling temperature is reached. Cooking water too long on a stovetop means that some of it boils away, but doing the same in a microwave oven may mean that it becomes dangerously superheated. Just a reminder that boiling water is a hazard for children even without superheating.

Second: Handle liquids that have been heated in a microwave oven with respect.

  • Do not remove a liquid the instant the oven stops. If the water was bubbling
    spasmodically or not at all despite heavy heating, it may be superheated and deserves particular respect. But even if you see no indications of superheating, it takes no real effort to be careful. If you cooked the water or any other liquid long enough for it to reach boiling temperature, let it rest for a minute per cup before removing it from the microwave.
  • Never put your face or body over the container and keep the container at a safe
    distance when you add things to it for the first time: powdered coffee, sugar, a
    teabag, or a spoon. The spontaneous bubbling that occurs when you add something to microwave-heated water is the result of such mild superheating. It is far better to have the liquid boil violently while it is inside the microwave oven than when it is outside on your counter and can splatter all over you.

Finally: This is not meant to scare you away from using your microwave oven or from heating water in it. It is intended to show you that there is a potential hazard that you can avoid. Microwave ovens are wonderful devices as long as you use them properly.

“Using them properly” means not heating liquids too long in smooth-walled containers

 

 

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Can Your Kitchen Pass the Food Safety Test?

What comes to mind when you think of a clean kitchen? Shiny waxed floors? Gleaming stainless steel sinks? Spotless counters and neatly arranged cupboards?

They can help, but a truly "clean" kitchen--that is, one that ensures safe food--relies on more than just looks: It also depends on safe food practices.

In the home, food safety concerns revolve around three main functions: food storage, food handling, and cooking. To see how well you're doing in each, take this quiz, and then read on to learn how you can make the meals and snacks from your kitchen the safest possible.

Quiz

Choose the answer that best describes the practice in your household, whether or not you are the primary food handler.

1. The temperature of the refrigerator in my home is:
a. 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius)
b. 40 F (5 C)
c. I don't know; I've never measured it.

2. The last time we had leftover cooked stew or other food with meat, chicken or fish, the food was:
a. cooled to room temperature, then put in the refrigerator
b. put in the refrigerator immediately after the food was served
c. left at room temperature overnight or longer

3. The last time the kitchen sink drain, disposal and connecting pipe in my home were sanitized was:
a. last night
b. several weeks ago
c. can't remember

4. If a cutting board is used in my home to cut raw meat, poultry or fish and it is going to be used to chop another food, the board is:
a. reused as is
b. wiped with a damp cloth
c. washed with soap and hot water
d. washed with soap and hot water and then sanitized

5. The last time we had hamburgers in my home, I ate mine:
a. rare (140 F)
b. medium (160 F)
c. well-done (170 F)

6. The last time there was cookie dough in my home, the dough was:
a. made with raw eggs, and I sampled some of it
b. made with raw eggs and refrigerated, then I sampled some of it
c. store-bought, and I sampled some of it
d. not sampled until baked

7. I clean my kitchen counters and other surfaces that come in contact with food with:
a. water
b. hot water and soap
c. hot water and soap, then bleach solution
d. hot water and soap, then commercial sanitizing agent

8. When dishes are washed in my home, they are:
a. washed and dried in an automatic dishwasher
b. left to soak in the sink for several hours and then washed with soap in the same water
c. washed right away with hot water and soap in the sink and then air-dried
d. washed right away with hot water and soap in the sink and immediately towel-dried

9. The last time I handled raw meat, poultry or fish, I cleaned my hands afterwards by:
a. wiping them on a towel
b. rinsing them under hot, cold or warm tap water
c. washing with soap and warm water

10. Meat, poultry and fish products are defrosted in my home by:
a. setting them on the counter
b. placing them in the refrigerator
c. microwaving

11. When I buy fresh seafood, I:
a. buy only fish that's refrigerated or well iced
b. take it home immediately and put it in the refrigerator
c. sometimes buy it straight out of a local fisher's creel

12. I realize people, including myself, should be especially careful about not eating raw seafood, if they have:
a. diabetes
b. HIV infection
c. cancer
d. liver disease


Answers

1. Refrigerators should stay at 40 F (5 C) or less, so if you chose answer B, give yourself two points. If you didn't, you're not alone. According to Robert Buchanan, Ph.D., senior science adviser and director of science in the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, many people overlook the importance of maintaining an appropriate refrigerator temperature.

"According to surveys, in many households, the refrigerator temperature is above 50 degrees (10 C)," he said.

His advice: Measure the temperature with a thermometer and, if needed, adjust the refrigerator's temperature control dial.

A temperature of 40 F (5 C) or less is important because it slows the growth of most bacteria. The temperature won't kill the bacteria, but it will keep them from multiplying, and the fewer there are, the less likely you are to get sick.

Freezing at zero F (minus 18 C) or less stops bacterial growth (although it won't kill bacteria already present).

2. Answer B is the best practice; give yourself two points if you picked it.

Hot foods should be refrigerated as soon as possible within two hours after cooking. But don't keep the food if it's been standing out for more than two hours. Don't taste test it, either. Even a small amount of contaminated food can cause illness.

Date leftovers so they can be used within a safe time. Generally, they remain safe when refrigerated for three to five days. If in doubt, throw it out, says FDA microbiologist Kelly Bunning, Ph.D., associate senior science adviser in CFSAN: "It's not worth a foodborne illness for the small amount of food usually involved."

3. If answer A best describes your household's practice, give yourself two points. Give yourself one point if you chose B.

According to John Guzewich, CFSAN's director of emergency coordination and response, the kitchen sink drain, disposal and connecting pipe are often overlooked, but they should be sanitized periodically by pouring down the sink a solution of 1 teaspoon (5 milliliters) of chlorine bleach in 1 quart (about 1 liter) of water or a solution of commercial kitchen cleaning agent made according to product directions. Food particles get trapped in the drain and disposal and, along with the moistness, create an ideal environment for bacterial growth.

4. If answer D best describes your household's practice, give yourself two points.

If you picked A, you're violating an important food safety rule: Never allow raw meat, poultry and fish to come in contact with other foods. Answer B isn't good, either. Improper washing, such as with a damp cloth, will not remove bacteria. And washing only with soap and water may not do the job, either.

To prevent cross-contamination from a cutting board, the FDA advises consumers to follow these practices:

  • Use smooth cutting boards made of hard maple or a non-porous material such as plastic and free of cracks and crevices. These kinds of boards can be cleaned easily. Avoid boards made of soft, porous materials.
  • Wash cutting boards with hot water, soap, and a scrub brush to remove food particles. Then sanitize the boards by putting them through the automatic dishwasher or rinsing them in a solution of 1 teaspoon (5 milliliters) of chlorine bleach in 1 quart (about 1 liter) of water.
  • Always wash and sanitize cutting boards after using them for raw foods and before using them for ready-to-eat foods. Consider using one cutting board only for foods that will be cooked, such as raw fish, and another only for ready-to-eat foods, such as bread, fresh fruit, and cooked fish. Disposable cutting boards are a newer option, and can be found in grocery and discount chain stores.

5. Give yourself two points if you picked answer B or C.

Ground beef must be cooked to an internal temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit (71 degrees Celsius). Using a digital or dial food thermometer is crucial, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says, because research results indicate that some ground meat may prematurely brown before a safe internal temperature has been reached. On the other hand, research findings also show that some ground meat patties cooked to 160 F or above may remain pink inside for a number of reasons; thus the color of meat alone is not considered a reliable indicator of ground beef safety. If eating out, order your ground beef to be cooked well-done. Temperatures for other foods to reach to be safe include:

  • beef, lamb and veal--145 F (63 C)
  • pork and ground beef--160 F (71 C)
  • whole poultry and thighs--180 F (82 C)
  • poultry breasts--170 F (77 C)
  • ground chicken or ground turkey--165 F (74 C).

Seafood should be thoroughly cooked to an internal temperature of at least 145 F (63 C). Fish that's ground or flaked, such as a fish cake, should be cooked to at least 155 F (68 C), and stuffed fish to at least 165 F (74 C).

If you don't have a meat thermometer, there are other ways to determine whether seafood is done:

  • For fish, slip the point of a sharp knife into the flesh and pull aside. The edges should be opaque and the center slightly translucent with flakes beginning to separate. Let the fish stand three to four minutes to finish cooking.
  • For shrimp, lobster and scallops, check color. Shrimp and lobster turn red and the flesh becomes pearly opaque. Scallops turn milky white or opaque and firm.
  • For clams, mussels and oysters, watch for the point at which their shells open. Boil three to five minutes longer. Throw out those that stay closed.

When using the microwave, rotate the dish several times to ensure even cooking. Follow recommended standing times. After the standing time is completed, check the seafood in several spots with a meat thermometer to be sure the product has reached the proper temperature.

6. If you answered A or B, you may be putting yourself at risk for infection with Salmonella Enteritidis, a bacterium that can be inside shell eggs. Cooking the egg or egg-containing food product to an internal temperature of at least 160 F (71 C) kills the bacteria. Refrigerating will not kill the bacteria. So answer D--eating the baked product--will earn you two points.

Other foods containing raw eggs, such as homemade ice cream, cake batter, mayonnaise, and eggnog, carry a Salmonella risk too. Their commercial counterparts are usually made with pasteurized eggs; that is, eggs that have been heated sufficiently to kill bacteria, and also may contain an acidifying agent that kills the bacteria. But the best practice, even when using products containing pasteurized eggs, is to eat the foods only as they are intended to be eaten, so answer C, sampling the unbaked store-bought cookie dough, will not earn you any points.

Consider using pasteurized eggs for homemade recipes that do not include a cooking step, such as eggnog or Caesar salad dressing. Pasteurized eggs are usually sold in the grocer's refrigerated dairy case.

Some other tips to ensure egg safety:

  • Buy only refrigerated eggs, and keep them refrigerated until you are ready to cook and serve them.
  • Cook eggs thoroughly until both the yolk and white are firm, not runny, and scramble until there is no visible liquid egg.
  • Cook pasta dishes and stuffings that contain eggs thoroughly.

7. Answers C or D will earn you two points each; answer B, one point. According to FDA's Guzewich, bleach and commercial kitchen cleaning agents are the best sanitizers--provided they're diluted according to product directions. They're the most effective at getting rid of bacteria. Hot water and soap does a good job, too, but may not kill all strains of bacteria. Water alone may get rid of visible dirt, but not bacteria.

Also, be sure to keep dishcloths clean because, when wet, they can harbor bacteria and may promote their growth.

8. Answers A and C are worth two points each. There are potential problems with B and D. When you let dishes sit in water for a long time, it "creates a soup," FDA's Buchanan says. "The food left on the dish contributes nutrients for bacteria, so the bacteria will multiply." When washing dishes by hand, he says, it's best to wash them all within two hours. Also, it's best to air-dry them so you don't handle them while they're wet.

9. The only correct practice is answer C. Give yourself two points if you picked it.

Wash hands with warm water and soap for at least 20 seconds before and after handling food, especially raw meat, poultry and fish. If you have an infection or cut on your hands, wear rubber or plastic gloves. Wash gloved hands just as often as bare hands because the gloves can pick up bacteria. (However, when washing gloved hands, you don't need to take off your gloves and wash your bare hands, too.)

10. Give yourself two points if you picked B or C. Food safety experts recommend thawing foods in the refrigerator or the microwave oven, or putting the package in a water-tight plastic bag submerged in cold water and changing the water every 30 minutes. Gradual defrosting overnight in the refrigerator is best because it helps maintain quality.

When microwaving, follow package directions. Leave about 2 inches (about 5 centimeters) between the food and the inside surface of the microwave to allow heat to circulate. Smaller items will defrost more evenly than larger pieces of food. Foods defrosted in the microwave oven should be cooked immediately after thawing.

Do not thaw meat, poultry and fish products on the counter or in the sink without cold water; bacteria can multiply rapidly at room temperature.

Similarly, marinate food in the refrigerator, not on the counter. Discard the marinade after use because it contains raw juices, which may harbor bacteria. If you want to use the marinade as a dip or sauce, reserve a portion before adding raw food.

11. A and B are correct. Give yourself two points for either.

When buying fresh seafood, buy only from reputable dealers who keep their products refrigerated or properly iced. Be wary, for example, of vendors selling fish out of their creel (canvas bag) or out of the back of their truck.

Once you buy the seafood, immediately put it on ice, in the refrigerator, or in the freezer.

Some other tips for choosing safe seafood:

  • Don't buy cooked seafood, such as shrimp, crabs or smoked fish, if displayed in the same case as raw fish. Cross-contamination can occur. Or, at least, make sure the raw fish is on a level lower than the cooked fish so that the raw fish juices don't flow onto the cooked items and contaminate them.
  • Don't buy frozen seafood if the packages are open, torn or crushed on the edges. Avoid packages that are above the frost line in the store's freezer. If the package cover is transparent, look for signs of frost or ice crystals. This could mean that the fish has either been stored for a long time or thawed and refrozen.
  • Recreational fishers who plan to eat their catch should follow state and local government advisories about fishing areas and eating fish from certain areas.
  • As with meat and poultry, if seafood will be used within two days after purchase, store it in the coldest part of the refrigerator, usually under the freezer compartment or in a special "meat keeper." Avoid packing it in tightly with other items; allow air to circulate freely around the package. Otherwise, wrap the food tightly in moisture-proof freezer paper or foil to protect it from air leaks and store in the freezer.
  • Discard shellfish, such as lobsters, crabs, oysters, clams, and mussels, if they die during storage or if their shells crack or break. Live shellfish close up when the shell is tapped.

12. If you are under treatment for any of these diseases, as well as several others, you should avoid raw seafood. Give yourself two points for knowing one or more of the risky conditions.

People with certain diseases and conditions need to be especially careful because their diseases or the medicines they take may put them at risk for serious illness or death from contaminated seafood.

These conditions include:

  • liver disease, either from excessive alcohol use, viral hepatitis, or other causes
  • hemochromatosis, an iron disorder
  • diabetes
  • stomach problems, including previous stomach surgery and low stomach acid (for example, from antacid use)
  • cancer
  • immune disorders, including HIV infection
  • long-term steroid use, as for asthma and arthritis.

Older adults also may be at increased risk because they more often have these conditions.

People with these diseases or conditions should never eat raw seafood--only seafood that has been thoroughly cooked.


Rating Your Home's Food Practices

24 points: Feel confident about the safe food practices you follow in your home.

12 to 23 points: Reexamine food safety practices in your home. Some key rules are being violated.

11 points or below: Take steps immediately to correct food handling, storage and cooking techniques used in your home. Current practices are putting you and other members of your household in danger of foodborne illness.


Other Kitchen Contaminants

Lead

Lead leached from some types of ceramic dinnerware into foods and beverages is often consumers' biggest source of dietary lead, says John Jones, Ph.D., in the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. (See "Lead Threat Lessens, But Mugs Pose Problem" in the April 1993 FDA Consumer and "An Unwanted Souvenir: Lead in Ceramic Ware" in the December 1989-January 1990 FDA Consumer.) Here are some tips to reduce your exposure:

  • Don't store acidic foods, such as fruit juices, in ceramic containers.
  • Avoid or limit to special occasions the use of antique or collectible housewares for food and beverages.
  • Follow label directions on ornamental ceramic products labeled "Not for Food Use--May Poison Food" or "For Decorative Purposes Only," and don't use these items for preparing or storing food.

Also, don't store beverages in lead crystal containers for extended periods.

Microwave Packaging

High temperature use of some microwave food packaging material may cause packaging components, such as paper, adhesives and polymers, to migrate into food at excessive levels. For that reason, choose only microwave-safe cooking containers. Never use packaging cartons for cooking unless the package directs you to do so. (See "Keeping Up with the Microwave Revolution" in the March 1990 FDA Consumer.)

Aluminum

According to the FDA's Jones, there has been speculation linking aluminum to Alzheimer's disease. The link has never been proved, he said, but if consumers are concerned, they should avoid cooking acidic foods, such as tomato sauce, in aluminum pans. For other uses, well-maintained aluminum pans--as well as stainless steel, copper and iron pots and pans--present no apparent hazards.

Insects, Rodents and Dirt

  • Avoid storing food in cabinets that are under the sink or have water, drain and heating pipes passing through them. Food stored here can attract insects and rodents through openings that are difficult to seal adequately.
  • Wash the tops of cans with soap and water before opening.

Home-Based Foodborne Illness

When several members of a household come down with sudden, severe diarrhea and vomiting, intestinal flu is often considered the likely culprit. But food poisoning may be another consideration.

A true diagnosis is often never made because the ill people recover without having to see a doctor.

Health experts believe this is a common situation in households across the country, and because a doctor is often not seen for this kind of illness, the incidence of foodborne illness is not really known.

An estimated 76 million cases of foodborne disease occur each year in the United States. The great majority of these cases are mild and cause symptoms for only a day or two. Some cases are more serious, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that there are 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths related to foodborne diseases each year. The most severe cases tend to occur in the very old, the very young, those who have an illness already that reduces their immune system function, and in healthy people exposed to a very high dose of an organism.

Cases of home-based foodborne illness may become a bigger problem, some food safety experts say, partly because today's busy family may not be as familiar with food safety issues as more home-focused families of past generations.

The increased use of convenience foods, which often are preserved with special chemicals and processes, also complicates today's home food safety practices, says Robert Buchanan, Ph.D., senior science advisor and director of science in the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. These foods, such as TV dinners, which are specially preserved, give consumers a false idea that equivalent home-cooked foods are equally safe, he says.

To curb the problem, food safety experts recommend food safety education emphasizing the principles of HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point), a new food safety procedure that many food companies are now incorporating into their manufacturing processes. Unlike past practices, HACCP focuses on preventing foodborne hazards, such as microbial contamination, by identifying points at which hazards can be introduced into the food and then controlling and monitoring these potential problem areas. (See "HACCP: Patrolling for Food Hazards" in the January-February 1995 FDA Consumer.)

"It's mainly taking a common-sense approach towards food safety in the home," says Buchanan. "Basically, consumers need to make sure they're not defeating the system by contaminating the product."

 

UNWISE MICROWAVE OVEN EXPERIMENTS
 

High Voltage in the Kitchen

 

 

main page

Danger: Coffee Explosion

You warm up a mug of water for a few minutes in the microwave oven. You take it out, then you dump in some powdered coffee, tea, sugar, etc...
 

DOOSH! The water explodes in roiling foam, spraying boiling water all over your bare skin, and sending you to the emergency ward. I hate it when that happens.
 

Heating up water or coffee in a microwave oven can be dangerous, especially if you use a ceramic mug or clean glassware. Water sometimes "explodes" because the oven heats it to a temperature that's far hotter than the normal boiling point. When this occurs, any tiny disturbance can trigger some violent boiling. The stored energy of the above-100C water is released as a steam explosion. This DOESN'T happen when water is boiled in a pot on the stove. The difference: a stove creates small hotspots on the bottom of the pot which are far above 100C degrees, and these hotspots continuously trigger a roiling boil which cools the rest of the water down to 100C.
 

Whenever there are bubbles of steam zipping up through the water, those bubbles provide some surfaces which allow the water to make more steam, and as steam is created, the water cools down to 100C. In fact, water can only "boil" at places where the water surface touches a gas. If there are no bubbles already formed, then "boiling" will only happen at the top surface of the water and not down within it. So, whenever you heat water on the stove, the extreme temperature at the bottom of the pot causes tiny bubbles to form. The boiling water fills those bubbles with steam. The roiling bubbles act to cool the water and keep its temperature at (or below) 100C/212F degrees.
 

Things are different in a microwave oven. The water gets hot but the container usually does not. There are no tiny "boiling-bubbles" triggered by a hot stove burner. Without those bubbles to cool it, the temperature of the water can rise far higher than 100C. We call this "superheated water."
 

Superheated water is just waiting for some sort of trigger which will let bubbles form and allow boiling to commence. If the water becomes hot enough, a few bubbles will appear near the top, but these quickly rise and burst, and the water isn't cooled much at all. Even if your mug of water is bubbling slightly, don't trust it, since its temperature has risen so high above 100C that bubbles are appearing spontaneously. If some unwitting victim should pour powder into the superheated water, this will carry thousands of tiny air bubbles into the water. Each of these micro-bubbles expands into a large steam bubble, and the result is a huge "explosion" of hot froth. It's just like dumping ice cream into rootbeer, but the froth can be so violent that the hot water sprays into the air.
 

Even more dangerous is to boil water TWICE in a microwave oven. Most containers have tiny scratches in their surfaces, and these crevices contain air. When you heat water, these tiny air pockets will provide a constant stream of "seed bubbles" which allow normal boiling to occur. However, the air in these tiny bubbles within the cracks quickly gets replaced by steam. The crevices still produce seed-bubbles, but if you turn off the oven and let the water cool, the steam in the cracks will collapse and vanish, and the crevices fill with water. The seed bubbles are gone. If you now turn the oven on again, the water will superheat. Boiling your coffee twice can erase the bubble "nucleation centers." If your luck is bad, the water will superheat to a very high temperature, then explode violently when a single huge steam bubble spontaneously appears. If that bubble should start out at the bottom of the container, the explosion can fling the entire volume of hot water upwards. A few people have reported that sometimes the explosion is so violent that it makes a sharp noise, and can even crack a glass container.
 

MOST DANGEROUS:
  - BOILING PLAIN WATER...
  - IN A CLEAN SHINY CONTAINER (MUG OR PYREX)...
  - BOILING IT MORE THAN ONCE (LET IT COOL BETWEEN BOILINGS)...
  - COOKING IT EXTRA LONG (STORES LOTS OF ENERGY IN SUPERHEATING)...
  - REMOVING IT IMMEDIATELY (NO CHANCE TO COOL DOWN)
  - DUMPING IN SUGAR, CREAMER, A TEABAG, ETC. (SUDDENLY ADDS SEED BUBBLES)
 

If you avoid the items on this list, you'll probably never see a "coffee explosion." On the other hand, the above list is a "recipe for disaster." DON'T BE TEMPTED TO FOLLOW IT. Instead, here's a simple, HAZARDOUS experiment to try. Wear safety goggles, and don't heat the water for an excessive amount of time.
 

Fill a clean mug about 1/3 full of clean water (DON'T FILL IT TO THE TOP!), then heat it for about five minutes in the microwave oven. Now carefully take it out and immediately plunk it firmly onto the tabletop (whack it hard, but not so hard that it breaks.) The boiling water will burst into froth. DON'T BURN YOURSELF! The superheated water acts almost like warm carbonated cola: if you strike the container, it will foam up instantly.
 

Another trick: heat up the water to boiling again, remove it from the oven, then immediately insert a dry wooden coffee-stirrer, or a wooden popcicle stick into the water. Foosh! The water boils violently. The dry wood contributes a layer of air to the water, and the air fills with steam and expands into a mass of hot foam.
 

Another: heat up the water again, then pour a little bit of warm tap water into the superheated water. The water suddenly boils violently! It turns out that the tap water is full of tiny bubbles. If you let the tap water stand around for half an hour before pouring it into the superheated water, all the tiny bubbles in the tap water will have risen and popped, and the bubble-free water won't trigger any violent boiling. And if you then dissolve some salt into your "bubble-free" tap water, again that water WILL trigger boiling, since the salt contributes invisibly small bubbles.
 

Hmmmm. I wonder if de-ionized distilled water in a REALLY CLEAN container will superheat even more than normal? (DANGER, SUPERHEATED WATER CAN BURST OUT OF THE MUG AND SCALD YOU!) I wonder what would happen if we used vacuum-degassed water, or if we put some dishwashing soap in the water...
 

SAFETY WARNING: Treat microwave-boiled water with respect. It can "explode" without warning. You can "defuse" it by CAREFULLY inserting a dry wooden stir-stick or toothpick in order to trigger boiling. Don't dump any sugar in a mug of superheated coffee, or the spewing foam *really* gets violent. Don't try to boil liquids more than once, since that removes the tiny bubbles on the container surfaces which act as boiling centers. If you're going to re-heat a previously heated mug of liquid, cook it with a wooden stir-stick or wood chopstick which allows it to boil normally. Always allow bubbling liquids to cool for several minutes before adding anything to them (or perhaps reach over and carefully drop in a dry toothpick or a wooden stir-stick to force them into normal boiling mode.)
PS
Certain types of foods have no bubbles inside, and these foods will superheat and "explode." For example, never cook a whole unbroken egg in a microwave oven. The explosion isn't just messy, sometimes it's violent enough to smash up the inside of your oven or tear off the door. Paste-like canned foods easily superheat since they're too thick to allow streams of tiny bubbles to form. Canned spaghetti sauce is famous for superheating and causing those "BOOMF" mini-explosions that spray the sauce all over the oven. (I wonder if there's any cure for the "Spaghetti-O explosions?" Maybe whip the stuff with a fork before cooking, so lots of air is added? Mix it with dry bread crumbs or other material that's full of air?)
 


CLASSICS

There are many other excellent microwave demos on other sites. Stand up a CD in your oven and nuke it for about five seconds. Or convert Marshmallow Peeps into monsterous mutants. Slice a grape almost in half and watch it emit a six inch blowtorch of flaming plasma. Make showers of sparks with steel wool. Swell a chunk of Ivory soap into a blob of crunchy snow. Gamble on racing grapes.
Google microwave oven search on:


Untried experiments

Generate a glob of soot from burning paint thinner. Replace the air within the soot ball with pure oxygen, or ozone, or nitrogen, or argon. Place it within an active microwave oven. Is a Ball Lightning plasmoid created?
 

Light a candle and place it in the oven. Does the RF energy make the candle flame grow huge? If you place various metal salts on the wick, will the colored candle flame absorb RF energy better? Or, try running a wire up through the candle so its tip is in the flame. Any effects? There are reports of "ball lightning" being generated from candles, burning toothpicks, and burning plastic in Microwave Ovens.
 

Partially inflate a balloon with argon. Release the argon to purge the bit of air that was in the balloon, then fill it with pure argon. Carefully insert a wire up into the balloon so the wire tip is near the center of the sphere. Tie off the balloon. Place it on a plate in a microwave oven and turn it on. This should create a 700 watt "plasma ball" effect. However, it might also pop the balloon instantly. The tip of the wire will probably be melted by the intense corona. Anyone for "Kirlian photography" which vaporizes the object being photographed? If the balloon pops instantly, try the same thing by using a plexiglas box. (note: glue fumes wreck the effect, so hold the plexiglas together with tape.)
 

Try the infamous Microwave Powered Water-Fueled Lawn Mower. Do huge pulses of EM really extract energy from a mysterious source within water? Dr. Graneau says that high current discharge through liquid water produces numerous anomalies. Laugh if you wish, but only the real world can supply the real answer. "Let the experiment be Made!"
More and weirder non-microwave experiments

 

 
 

Other microwave oven sites on the WWW:

 

Microwave oven Ball Lightning

Microwave oven chemistry experiments

Misc sites

 

Microwave Magma: a lava flow of liquid Pyrex

A guy who repairs microwave ovens once told me that an oven burned a hole through a Pyrex measuring cup. The cup had boiled dry, and apparently the microwaves attacked the glass. Yet glass is mostly transparent to microwaves, so it shouldn't heat up. WTF?!!
 

Then I remembered a little trick that physics teachers perform. First they connect a glass rod to 120VAC cables. Then they heat the glass rod with a blow torch until it becomes red hot between the electrical connections. Glass is full of sodium or boron ions (charged atoms,) and glass becomes a conductor when softened. The ion charges become unlocked and movable. As it's heated with the torch, the red hot glass suddenly draws significant current from the electric outlet, it turns yellow hot, then white, then incandescent blue-white. It burns in half (if your circuit breaker doesn't trip first!) For a moment it acts like a light-bulb, but with a glass as the glowing filament.
 

Hmmm. So... if something were to heat a tiny spot on the glass to nearly red hot... the glass would become a good absorber of microwaves? It then might quickly become white hot, heating the surrounding glass to red hot, which would also absorb microwaves and begin heating. An "outbreak" of melting would occur, like a microwave-powered forest fire slowly moving through the glass. It only needs a trigger. (Also the oven needs to be empty of every other object, otherwise most of the wattage will end up elsewhere, rather than in the glass we wish to melt.)
 

[First we heat a spot on the bottle...]

Torch a little hotspot...

[...then we pop it in the nuker]

...pop it in the ol' nuker

[...and sit back and watch.]
 


 

 

...sit back and enjoy.


It works great! Just use some method to heat a small spot on the rim of a pyrex custard dish to red hot, slam it instantly into the oven and hit "start." The tiny red glow will increase wildly. Just remember to shut it down before the advancing "lava flow" runs to the bottom of your oven and burns off the paint. Obviously this is somewhat dangerous as a demo. If you don't already know the hazards (such as trapped internal strains and high-velocity shrapnel), then messing with this procedure would be extremely Unwise.
 

LAVA CHAMBER:
I found a hunk of porus red rock used as "decorative stone" under some shrubbery. I'm told that it's probably slag from the iron industry. Would the stuff turn conductive when hot? Lets find out! I put it on a small overturned flower pot in the oven, then heated a small spot to orange heat, then slammed the door and started it up. The orange heat died away. It seemingly went dead. But then my intuition kicked in: wouldn't the surface radiate away the energy, while deeper within, the material was still absorbing microwaves like crazy? The hot region... should MIGRATE! It should move into the center of the rock where plenty of RF is heating it, but where it's surrounded with nice insulating, non-microwave-absorbing rock. Let's let it cook and see what happens. Hmmm. Inside the pores in the rock I see something red. Now it's yellow. Now there's a crevice. The whole side of the small rock splits open, collapses, revealing the interior of a white hot miniature magma chamber. An orange river of magma pours forth! I stop the oven, and the flow halts before it gets to the bottom. Through the open door I can feel the radiating heat on my face. Hope it doesn't set the painted metal walls on fire!
REAL MAGMA:
Next I triggered some heating in a small piece of obsidian. I hoped to re-liquify some actual lava, rather than melting the manmade materials above. But I didn't remember an important fact: Hawaiian volcanos slurp outwards, but magma from American volcanos is more like a white hot jet engine filled with powdered glass... because American lava is full of dissolved gas. Sure enough, the black obsidian melted in the microwave oven. Sure enough, it expanded into a large white puff of glass foam, sort of like a popped popcorn kernel.
BEER BOTTLE:
Find a bottle that's short enough to stand upright in the oven. I recommend "Red Stripe" Jamaican ale. (Grin.) Yes, with care you can heat a spot on the glass bottle to dull red heat but without shattering the bottle. And yes, the microwave output of your oven will then raise it to incandescent white hot, melting a hole right through which grows larger and larger. And yes, during cooling the bottle will shatter, launching hot fragments all over the kitchen. Keep the oven door closed. If the bottle doesn't break, wear gloves and whack it with a screwdriver while the door is almost shut.
Also see on Usenet:
Molten lava in your microwave
 

LIGHTNING STORM

NOTICE: this one requires a source of welders' Argon.
 

Hobbyists discovered the joys of high voltage Argon a few years ago. Shoot foot-long lighting bolts from your fingers!
 

Ah, since a microwave oven is a high voltage environment, what will happen? I tried nuking some pure argon in a round flask. Nuthin. RATS! But years later at a hobbyist meeting I wondered what would happen if the "plasma pool" experiment was performed in pure argon? I set up a piece of Carbon Veil (carbon fibers) in a shot glass, inside a trash bag, inside my microwave oven. I inflated it with argon and ran the oven. A spherical white lightning ball winked into existence at the carbon, then rose upwards buzzing. Yay! The Argon needs a sharp conductive "igniter" to get going.
 

During WEIRD GENIUS REAL SCIENCE I tried some extremely pure argon in a spherical glass flask with a tiny piece of aluminum foil as an igniter inside. (The argon used previously had quite a bit of air mixed in.) Hit the button. WAAAA! THE WHOLE GLASS FLASK FILLS WITH BLUE WHITE LIGHTNING! Tiny bright lightning filaments! And afterwards the flask was full of transparent orange gas.
 

So next, I put a little bit of argon in a white kitchen trash bag, threw in a piece of carbon fiber, then squeezed out the argon (to flush any nitrogen totally out.) Then I filled half the bag with argon, tied it off with a plastic tie, and stuffed it into the oven. Close the door. Hit the start button. Ten seconds of stunning noise, lights, and patterns, and the small audience broke into spontaneous applause, because...

  • First the ENTIRE OVEN FILLED WITH JITTERING LIGHTING BOLTS
  • Next the bag started melting and collapsing, holes appeared
  • The lightning spewed right into the air through the holes as the bag shrunk
  • The lightning remaining in the bag turned into bright turquoise plasma
  • As the bag entirely collapsed, brilliant plasma amoebas crawled frantically around, burning the bag and finding every last bit of remaining argon.
  • Silence. Darkness. The stunned crowd cheers.

The patterns are easily visible with white kitchen trash bags, although a clear plastic bag might work better. Argon can be had from any welders' suppply outlet, and a tankful costs about $20... but you need a constant-flow regulator. These cost about $70 new. And there's a rental charge if you don't buy your own metal tank. But man, it's worth it.
 

They're Heeeeere!

Years ago I was living with roommates, and while working in the kitchen I noticed that the fluorescent light over the sink was about 8 inches long. A light went on in my brain ;) because I'd always wondered what would happen if a fluorescent tube was placed in a microwave oven. In theory the standing-wave RF energy should have enough voltage to ignite the mercury vapor into a plasma, and the lamp should light. But standard ovens put out at least 500 watts, so the tiny fluorescent tube should light quite brightly, to say the least. I'd never before encountered a fluorescent tube which was short enough to fit in an oven. So, I pulled out the tube, stuck it in the oven, said "THEY'RE HEEEEEERE!" , and punched the ON switch. Sure enough, the kitchen was lit up by a blue-white blaze of light coming from the front of the microwave oven. I only let it run for about 1 second, but this was enough to heat the fluorescent tube so it was too hot to touch.
 

(Yeah yeah yeah, I know I'm reeeeeally old, and most young whippersnappers never saw all those ads for the movie "Poltergeist," where the young daughter looks at the screen of the misbehaving TV set and says "they're here." )
 

Candle spews "Ball Lightnings"

In the late 1990s, someone on the Cold Fusion research forum mentioned a rumor: that if you cook a lit candle in your microwave oven, it will emit large buzzing gouts of plasma which will crawl around on the upper surface inside the oven. Yowza! So a large number of people tried this... without success. Only one person saw it happen, but nobody else could duplicate it.
 

Finally someone on another forum discovered the secret: high oven power, and carbon impurities! If your microwave oven can put out significantly more than 500 watts, and if you stick a bunch of charred toothpick fragments in the top of a lit candle... then sure enough, the candle will intermittently spit out orange "flames" made of plasma. The plasma rises immediately to the top of the oven and crawls around. When it winks out, the candle will emit another one.
 

Over many months, several people discovered easier ways to trigger the production of these "microwave plasmoids," including using graphite rods from mechanical pencils, or even using a lit cigarette. Check out the various links.
 


Cuppa burning plasma

Electric arcs can develop inside a microwave. The strength of the e-field inside the oven chamber can be described as "high voltage." Once a high-volt electric arc has been triggered, it will absorb energy from the microwave field. Sometimes it can break loose and fly around the oven like a "ball lightning." One way to trigger this effect is described above: place a lit candle inside the oven. Use a wide and stubby "votive candle" and stick some short pieces of charred toothpick into the top of the candle to supply some "seeds" of carbon (or ions?) for initial arc attachment.
 

A wandering electric arc can be captured in an upside-down container, J.L Naudin has some GIFs of this effect on his site. I tried it with a Pyrex measuring cup and it works! The cup became quite hot after only a few seconds of contact with the "plasma", so perhaps you shouldn't run it for very long. Or, if you have an old oven that you don't mind destroying, find out what happens when you run it for many minutes. Maybe you can melt the cup into incandescent glass-lava. [NEW: after about 30 seconds the cup goes "snap" and falls apart into shards. Apparently the plasma is as hot as a blow torch, and it shatters the glass.]
 

I supported the inverted cup-measure on three small paper cups. My candle was about 1in tall and 1in wide. I stuck several pieces of charred toothpicks into the top, lit the candle, then placed it below the glass container and shut the door.
 

The oven ran for a short time before the candle flame began creating eruptions of plasma. (If yours doesn't work, move the candle to another spot in order to locate a "hotspot.") Some of the plasma flickers blew away because of the oven fan and were lost, but finally one rose into the glass mug. The "plasma pool" fills half the cup and makes a loud 120Hz buzzing noise. It initially is dull orange, but then it changes color to pinkish blue. This color resembles the color of a glassblower's torch when borosilicate glass is being heated. Berhaps it's boron emission lines, or perhaps the color is associated with nitrogen/oxygen emission.
 

NEW EXPERIMENT:
I used honey to adhere some salt (NaCl) to the inner surface of the pyrex cup in hopes that I'd see some yellow Sodium light. This works well. At first the captured plasma blob turned pinkish blue, but then a wave of brilliant yellow/orange light passed through it. This effect repeated several times, and I suspect that salt crystals are falling off the glass surface and passing through the plasma, releasing sodium ions as they go. Other salts to try: salt replacement (potassium chloride), copper sulfate, borax, epsom salts, perhaps even strontium chloride for red color. Search for info about fireworks colorants.
 

IMPROVEMENT:
See Matt Crowley's paper on Bigger Better Balls
 

LESS WISE EXPERIMENT:
Years ago there was a news story about a new kind of efficient light source: a quartz capsule of sulfur which was blasted with microwaves. What will happen if the above salt crystals are replaced with powdered sulfur? Blasts of intense white light? I haven't tried it yet. [NOW I DID! No brilliant light. Instead, the plasma forms, then the sulfur reacts with air to create a cloud of acrid gas. Sulfuric acid?!! Suddenly I find that I can't breathe the air in my kitchen. Hold nose, turn on the fans, and leave the house at a run!]
To try next: put a tiny hole in the upside-down glass cup (or perhaps use a chemist's funnel.) Will the pool of plasma drain out upwards through the hole? Or will the oven keep making more plasma as bits leak out? If I had a ceramic tube, could I guide the plasma through a hole and outside the oven? Home-built plasma torch!!
Snifter of Neon

While working on a microwave article for an encyclopedia decades ago, it crossed my mind that it might be possible to map the pattern of RF energy in the oven by filling it with low pressure gas. The gas would glow in proportion to the RF electric field in various parts of the oven's volume. (There are better ways to do this, some below.) This would be an involved bit of construction to pull off, so I did the next best thing. I grabbed a big bag of NE-2 neon pilot lights and stuck them into a wineglass, hoping that this small volume would show some patterns when the glass was rotated by the oven's turntable. I filled the glass with water, to give the oven something to heat so it wouldn't be damaged by the small load presented by the bulbs. I ran the oven, and the bulbs glowed REALLY BRIGHT. As the turntable turned, various bulbs extinguished and others lit up. However, I could see no coherent patterns. When I emptied the glass, I discovered that several of the bulbs were stuck together. The short metal leads of some bulbs had melted into the glass of adjacent ones. Also, several of the bulbs had small holes melted through their glass, and were full of water. Apparently the plasma temperature was so high that it heated the glass to melting. Or, possibly some corona discharges developed between the inside and outside of the bulbs and burned through the glass. Hot glass is conductive, so the arc would continue once started.
 

Foil-eating Plasma

I'd seen electrical flames produced by microwave ovens before. In the strong RF field, even the tiniest flame will absorb a large percent of the many-hundred-watts oven output and grow large. Thousand watt candle? So, I decided to try initiating an electrical flame-discharge intentionally. I tore aluminum foil into 2" squares, crumpled it lightly so it didn't lay flat, then placed it on the oven turntable with the two foil pieces adjacent to each other and in gentle contact. Sure enough, when the oven was turned on there was a loud buzz and a bright light, and a flame erupted from the contact point between the two pieces of foil. When I looked in on them, I found that the brief flame had eaten a bite about the size of a dime out of both pieces.
 

Note: on some ovens the air from the fan will blow the foil around. DON'T SEAL UP THE FAN OUTLET!!! Instead, tape the foil down to the glass turntable. The air from the fan is hot because that fan is being used to cool the magnetron tube. If you block up the fan, the microwave generator will have a meltdown!
 

Miscellaneous Light Bulb in the Microwave

My 8" fluorescent tube isn't the only light producer. Another classic u-oven experiment is to cook a standard incandescent bulb briefly on "high". A 100W bulb will light up with more than normal brightness.
 

If you have a newer oven with rating over 800W, include a glass of water in the oven, otherwise the filament support wires will instantly melt and spoil your fun. Even with the water, don't run this for very long, since ALL the lightbulb wires glow white hot, not just the filament. This could shatter the bulb. For best results, buy a transparent bulb rather than a frosted bulb, then watch what happens inside. If you include a glass of water, the bulb makes purple discharges. If you DON'T include water, the bulb makes many colors as the metal wires melt or turn into incandescing vapor. I've had the glass of bulbs be melted and burst *outwards.* Apparently the pressure in the bulb rapidly becomes higher than atmospheric pressure.
 

There is an interesting bit of physics here: first the filament and its supporting wires glow white hot, but then they cool again. Bright blue beams leap from the tips of the filament supports and extend outwards to the glass, with bright "stars" of incandescence at the tips of the wires (many watts of Saint Elmo's Fire, like Nikola Tesla's 'carbon button' lamps!) This is a plasma discharge in the argon/nitrogen gas that is found inside all standard light bulbs. It's similar to Plasma Globe devices such as "eye of the storm", but 500 watts worth, which heats the glass red hot, and may melt the tips of the steel filament supports, or soften the glass so it is crushed by external air pressure! Another one: elgersmad suggests trying xenon flash tubes.
 

Note that most of these objects become intensely hot, so don't prop them up on a plastic object. And as usual, if this damages the microwave generator in your oven, don't come whining to ME! You know the risks, or you wouldn't be messing with this stuff. Go buy a huge old microwave oven for $5 at a garage sale, experiment with THAT.) Better check for door-leaks first!
 

Mapping the Energy Nodes

Microwave ovens cook unevenly because a pattern of standing waves forms inside the oven chamber, and the pattern creates an array of hotspots throughout the oven's volume. An operating frequency of around 2000 MHZ will produce a wavelength of around 10cm, and the hotspots should be at halfwave points, or every 5cm, but in a complex 3D pattern. I'd always wondered how this could be visualized. Perhaps fill the entire oven with raw eggwhites, then let the oven cook them into an interesting, white, rubbery 3D sculpture? Or fill the oven with solid wax, and let the RF hotspots melt out a 3D structure of holes? Finally someone figured it out:

Alistair Steyn-Ross and Alister Riddell, STANDING WAVES IN A MICROWAVE OVEN, The Physics Teacher, October 1990, Vol. 28 No. 7 pp474-476

Steyn-Ross and Riddell were stimulated to investigate the pattern of melted cheese on a "mu-oven" cooked pizza. They hit on the use of Cobalt Chloride soaked paper. When wet, CoCl solution is pink, but turns sky- blue when dry. (It's sometimes sold as "weather indicator" paper.) They discovered that this worked beautifully, and a large square of the paper would give varying patterns of pink and blue when supported at different heights on a tile of cork within the oven. The pattern is temporary, and disappears as the paper dries entirely. Also, cobalt chloride is poisonous, and should not be used around young kids.
 

More recently, J. E. Slone of Virginia tells me that thermal FAX paper can be used for the same thing if is is slightly moistened. When placed on an insulating plate within the microwave oven, the hotspots heat the water to boiling which creates a permanent image of the standing wave pattern. Kool! Both of the above experiments will only work if your oven lacks a "stirrer," a fan which wiggles the hotspots and spreads them out. If your oven has a rotating turntable, it usually lacks a stirrer.

 
 

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Danger: Coffee Explosion

You warm up a mug of water for a few minutes in the microwave oven. You take it out, then you dump in some powdered coffee, tea, sugar, etc...
 

DOOSH! The water explodes in roiling foam, spraying boiling water all over your bare skin, and sending you to the emergency ward. I hate it when that happens.
 

Heating up water or coffee in a microwave oven can be dangerous, especially if you use a ceramic mug or clean glassware. Water sometimes "explodes" because the oven heats it to a temperature that's far hotter than the normal boiling point. When this occurs, any tiny disturbance can trigger some violent boiling. The stored energy of the above-100C water is released as a steam explosion. This DOESN'T happen when water is boiled in a pot on the stove. The difference: a stove creates small hotspots on the bottom of the pot which are far above 100C degrees, and these hotspots continuously trigger a roiling boil which cools the rest of the water down to 100C.
 

Whenever there are bubbles of steam zipping up through the water, those bubbles provide some surfaces which allow the water to make more steam, and as steam is created, the water cools down to 100C. In fact, water can only "boil" at places where the water surface touches a gas. If there are no bubbles already formed, then "boiling" will only happen at the top surface of the water and not down within it. So, whenever you heat water on the stove, the extreme temperature at the bottom of the pot causes tiny bubbles to form. The boiling water fills those bubbles with steam. The roiling bubbles act to cool the water and keep its temperature at (or below) 100C/212F degrees.
 

Things are different in a microwave oven. The water gets hot but the container usually does not. There are no tiny "boiling-bubbles" triggered by a hot stove burner. Without those bubbles to cool it, the temperature of the water can rise far higher than 100C. We call this "superheated water."
 

Superheated water is just waiting for some sort of trigger which will let bubbles form and allow boiling to commence. If the water becomes hot enough, a few bubbles will appear near the top, but these quickly rise and burst, and the water isn't cooled much at all. Even if your mug of water is bubbling slightly, don't trust it, since its temperature has risen so high above 100C that bubbles are appearing spontaneously. If some unwitting victim should pour powder into the superheated water, this will carry thousands of tiny air bubbles into the water. Each of these micro-bubbles expands into a large steam bubble, and the result is a huge "explosion" of hot froth. It's just like dumping ice cream into rootbeer, but the froth can be so violent that the hot water sprays into the air.
 

Even more dangerous is to boil water TWICE in a microwave oven. Most containers have tiny scratches in their surfaces, and these crevices contain air. When you heat water, these tiny air pockets will provide a constant stream of "seed bubbles" which allow normal boiling to occur. However, the air in these tiny bubbles within the cracks quickly gets replaced by steam. The crevices still produce seed-bubbles, but if you turn off the oven and let the water cool, the steam in the cracks will collapse and vanish, and the crevices fill with water. The seed bubbles are gone. If you now turn the oven on again, the water will superheat. Boiling your coffee twice can erase the bubble "nucleation centers." If your luck is bad, the water will superheat to a very high temperature, then explode violently when a single huge steam bubble spontaneously appears. If that bubble should start out at the bottom of the container, the explosion can fling the entire volume of hot water upwards. A few people have reported that sometimes the explosion is so violent that it makes a sharp noise, and can even crack a glass container.
 

 

MOST DANGEROUS:
  - BOILING PLAIN WATER...
  - IN A CLEAN SHINY CONTAINER (MUG OR PYREX)...
  - BOILING IT MORE THAN ONCE (LET IT COOL BETWEEN BOILINGS)...
  - COOKING IT EXTRA LONG (STORES LOTS OF ENERGY IN SUPERHEATING)...
  - REMOVING IT IMMEDIATELY (NO CHANCE TO COOL DOWN)
  - DUMPING IN SUGAR, CREAMER, A TEABAG, ETC. (SUDDENLY ADDS SEED BUBBLES)
 

If you avoid the items on this list, you'll probably never see a "coffee explosion." On the other hand, the above list is a "recipe for disaster." DON'T BE TEMPTED TO FOLLOW IT. Instead, here's a simple, HAZARDOUS experiment to try. Wear safety goggles, and don't heat the water for an excessive amount of time.
 

Fill a clean mug about 1/3 full of clean water (DON'T FILL IT TO THE TOP!), then heat it for about five minutes in the microwave oven. Now carefully take it out and immediately plunk it firmly onto the tabletop (whack it hard, but not so hard that it breaks.) The boiling water will burst into froth. DON'T BURN YOURSELF! The superheated water acts almost like warm carbonated cola: if you strike the container, it will foam up instantly.
 

Another trick: heat up the water to boiling again, remove it from the oven, then immediately insert a dry wooden coffee-stirrer, or a wooden popcicle stick into the water. Foosh! The water boils violently. The dry wood contributes a layer of air to the water, and the air fills with steam and expands into a mass of hot foam.
 

Another: heat up the water again, then pour a little bit of warm tap water into the superheated water. The water suddenly boils violently! It turns out that the tap water is full of tiny bubbles. If you let the tap water stand around for half an hour before pouring it into the superheated water, all the tiny bubbles in the tap water will have risen and popped, and the bubble-free water won't trigger any violent boiling. And if you then dissolve some salt into your "bubble-free" tap water, again that water WILL trigger boiling, since the salt contributes invisibly small bubbles.
 

Hmmmm. I wonder if de-ionized distilled water in a REALLY CLEAN container will superheat even more than normal? (DANGER, SUPERHEATED WATER CAN BURST OUT OF THE MUG AND SCALD YOU!) I wonder what would happen if we used vacuum-degassed water, or if we put some dishwashing soap in the water...
 

SAFETY WARNING: Treat microwave-boiled water with respect. It can "explode" without warning. You can "defuse" it by CAREFULLY inserting a dry wooden stir-stick or toothpick in order to trigger boiling. Don't dump any sugar in a mug of superheated coffee, or the spewing foam *really* gets violent. Don't try to boil liquids more than once, since that removes the tiny bubbles on the container surfaces which act as boiling centers. If you're going to re-heat a previously heated mug of liquid, cook it with a wooden stir-stick or wood chopstick which allows it to boil normally. Always allow bubbling liquids to cool for several minutes before adding anything to them (or perhaps reach over and carefully drop in a dry toothpick or a wooden stir-stick to force them into normal boiling mode.)
 

PS
Certain types of foods have no bubbles inside, and these foods will superheat and "explode." For example, never cook a whole unbroken egg in a microwave oven. The explosion isn't just messy, sometimes it's violent enough to smash up the inside of your oven or tear off the door. Paste-like canned foods easily superheat since they're too thick to allow streams of tiny bubbles to form. Canned spaghetti sauce is famous for superheating and causing those "BOOMF" mini-explosions that spray the sauce all over the oven. (I wonder if there's any cure for the "Spaghetti-O explosions?" Maybe whip the stuff with a fork before cooking, so lots of air is added? Mix it with dry bread crumbs or other material that's full of air?)
 

CLASSICS

There are many other excellent microwave demos on other sites. Stand up a CD in your oven and nuke it for about five seconds. Or convert Marshmallow Peeps into monsterous mutants. Slice a grape almost in half and watch it emit a six inch blowtorch of flaming plasma. Make showers of sparks with steel wool. Swell a chunk of Ivory soap into a blob of crunchy snow. Gamble on racing grapes.
 

Google microwave oven search on:


Untried experiments

Generate a glob of soot from burning paint thinner. Replace the air within the soot ball with pure oxygen, or ozone, or nitrogen, or argon. Place it within an active microwave oven. Is a Ball Lightning plasmoid created?
 

Light a candle and place it in the oven. Does the RF energy make the candle flame grow huge? If you place various metal salts on the wick, will the colored candle flame absorb RF energy better? Or, try running a wire up through the candle so its tip is in the flame. Any effects? There are reports of "ball lightning" being generated from candles, burning toothpicks, and burning plastic in Microwave Ovens.
 

Partially inflate a balloon with argon. Release the argon to purge the bit of air that was in the balloon, then fill it with pure argon. Carefully insert a wire up into the balloon so the wire tip is near the center of the sphere. Tie off the balloon. Place it on a plate in a microwave oven and turn it on. This should create a 700 watt "plasma ball" effect. However, it might also pop the balloon instantly. The tip of the wire will probably be melted by the intense corona. Anyone for "Kirlian photography" which vaporizes the object being photographed? If the balloon pops instantly, try the same thing by using a plexiglas box. (note: glue fumes wreck the effect, so hold the plexiglas together with tape.)
 

Try the infamous Microwave Powered Water-Fueled Lawn Mower. Do huge pulses of EM really extract energy from a mysterious source within water? Dr. Graneau says that high current discharge through liquid water produces numerous anomalies. Laugh if you wish, but only the real world can supply the real answer. "Let the experiment be Made!"
More and weirder non-microwave experiments
 

 
 

 

 

Microwave oven Ball Lightning

Microwave oven chemistry experiments

Misc sites

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