Development of microwave irradiation applicators for sustainable chemistry

Microwave heating has been expected as one of the energy-and-cost-saving processes for chemical reactions and other applications, owing to its features of rapid and selective heating. Numerous studies on microwave processing of biomass for bioenergy production have been reported [1], and woody biomass conversion by using microwave irradiation has been studied for producing bioenergy and value-added chemical products as an interdisciplinary study in RISH. Here we introduce microwave irradiation applicators for chemical reactions recently developed by our laboratory