Heating Microscopy and its Applications

Abstract

Heating microscopes were commercially introduced 60 years ago, and they immediately gained an important role in material science and engineering thanks to their wide field of application. Nowadays, these instruments are used in both industry and research in many sectors: traditional and advanced ceramic industries, the glass industry, power plants, the metallurgical sector, and, generally, in all fields where the melting behavior of materials has to be determined. Heating microscopy techniques can be successfully applied to the direct characterization of glazes, glasses, frits, ashes, mold powders for continuous casting, coals, slags, etc.—during a heat treatment.