Tube furnace and box furnace (often referred to as muffle furnace) are two different types of heat treatment equipment, and there are some significant differences in their application fields. Let's take a look at the detailed differences between the two devices in their application fields below!

Tube furnaces all have tube furnaces (click on the picture to view product details)

Application fields of tube furnace
Scientific research:
Tube furnaces have a wide range of applications in scientific research experiments, such as chemical reactions, catalyst preparation, and new material development. Its precise temperature control and circulating atmosphere control provide a stable and reliable high-temperature environment for scientific research.

Industrial production:
In the field of chemical engineering, tube furnaces are used for processes such as organic synthesis, preparation of polymer materials, and catalyst activation, which help improve product quality and production efficiency.
In the metallurgical industry, tube furnaces are used for metal smelting, melting, and alloy preparation, ensuring that metal raw materials are fully melted to produce high-quality metal products.
In the ceramic industry, tube furnaces also play an important role in high-temperature sintering of ceramic raw materials, forming dense ceramic bodies and improving the mechanical properties and high-temperature resistance of ceramic materials.
In addition, tube furnaces are widely used in semiconductor manufacturing, glass industry, and new energy fields (such as the preparation of solar cell materials and fuel cell materials).

Application fields of box furnace (muffle furnace)
Thermal analysis experiment:
Box type furnaces are suitable for various thermal analysis experiments, such as thermogravimetric analysis and differential thermal analysis of materials, due to their relatively stable internal atmosphere.

Material handling:
Mainly used for sintering, annealing, melting and other processes of large materials, such as surface treatment of stainless steel and preparation of target materials.
It is also widely used in the fields of industry, machinery, refractory materials, new material development, special materials, building materials, powder baking, etc.

Specific industry applications:
In coal quality analysis, it is used to determine moisture, ash content, volatile matter, etc.
In the hot processing, cement, and building materials industries, small workpieces are subjected to hot processing or treatment.
In the pharmaceutical industry, it is used for drug inspection, pre-treatment of medical samples, etc.
The environmental protection department can conduct component analysis on flue gas.

Summary of the differences between the two in application fields
Processing objects and scale: Tube furnaces are more suitable for processing small objects or slender samples, such as small particle ores, glass powder, ceramic powder, etc., while box furnaces are suitable for heating larger, thicker flat or block shaped samples, suitable for large-scale or batch processing.
Heating method and atmosphere control: The tube furnace uses a pipeline structure for radiation heating, and the internal atmosphere is circulating. The quality and performance optimization of materials can be achieved by controlling the temperature and atmosphere inside the furnace; Box type furnaces generate heat inside the heating chamber through radiation heating or convection heating, and the internal atmosphere is relatively stable.

Commonly used box type furnaces (click on the image to view product details)

Adaptability and flexibility: Due to its structural characteristics, the temperature zone and number of tubes of the tube furnace can be customized according to demand, and it has better airtightness, making it easy to perform pre vacuum and ventilation operations, and has high flexibility; Box type furnaces have relatively weak adaptability due to their furnace structure being a single heating space.Click to learn more muffle furnaces! Or click on online customer service to learn more about product information!