Rhodium Heated in Microwave

Hello

I find it annoying having to heat up Rhodium and Caustic solutions
on the hot plate. Im wondering if it is possible to heat both in the
Microwave oven. Has anyone thought of this before and tried it. Does
it work ? I only usually heat solution to about 60 deg Celsius. I
imagine it will reduce life of oven but I dont care. Even if I had
to buy a new one every year it would be worth it to be able to not
have the hassle of watching the element and just placing beakers in
Microwave for the deter mined time and leave it till I hear the ding.
No accidental boil overs etc etc.

Any input again much appreciated

Thanks
Phil W

Do it all the time. We keep that microwave designated for just this
kind of thing. No edibles heated in it.

I find it annoying having to heat up Rhodium and Caustic solutions
on the hot plate. Im wondering if it is possible to heat both in
the Microwave oven. Has anyone thought of this before and tried it.
Does it work ? 

I plate only occasionally, so keeping solutions warm in a waterbath
tank or the like would be overkill. So I DO use a microwave to warm
up solutions needing it. Usually that’s the electroclean and gold
plating solutions. You might want to recheck the instructions for
your rhodium solution. Most rhodium solutions I’ve seen operate at
room temperature, not hot.

One thought about the microwave, though. It’s probably not a good
idea to use a microwave that you also use for food. Reserve this one
for non-edible uses. Also, take great care that any dangerous or
caustic solutions don’t get hot enough to boil. A microwave, with
it’s ventillation fans running, and merrily boiling some solution
actively could be putting more fumes in the air than the simple
hotplate method would do. The microwave I use for this is a very
cheap, low power small unit I found on sale once at Target for all of
about 30 dollars. Works fine for plating solutions, as well as when I
need a bit of pickle hot right now, at the beginning of a work
session before the pickle pot has had a chance to heat up My pickle
pot too, came from Target, a small crock pot for six dollars on sale.
It’s removable pot goes right in the microwave, where it heats up a
lot faster than just left in it’s own heating base.

Cheers
Peter

Try heated ultrasonic with half water level. This works well.

Johneric