The global advantages of microwave processing over conventional heating include direct and volumetric heating, high selectivity, fast heating rate, and high controllability. The objective of this work is to study the fundamental interactions between microwaves and non-ionic chemical species. The research will: (1) determine the non-thermal effects during microwave-induced reaction by a comparative study of selected non-ionic reactions; (2) explore accurate temperature measurement techniques and determine the molecular temperature during microwave heating; (3) quantify the electric field and temperature distributions at the molecular level; and (4) study the effects of microwave reactor configuration and control on the reaction. To verify or disprove the non-thermal effects during microwave heating of non-ionic species, studies of both epoxy-amine polymerization and epoxy-amine model-compound organic reactions are planned using amines of different dipole moments. Systems of various dipole moments will be used because microwave effects occur primarily at the dipolar s ites for non-ionic reactions. The epoxide to be used for polymerization is diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA). The epoxides to be used for model-compound reactions are allyl glycidyl ether of bisphenol A (AGEBA) and phenyl glycidyl ether (PGE). The amines to be used will be meta phenylene diamine (mPDA), diaminodiphenyl methane (DDM), and diaminodiphenyl sulfone (DDS). Parallel isothermal reaction experiments will be carried out using microwave and conventional thermal heating. Microwave thermal mechanical analysis will be investigated to measure the segmental mobility of the dipolar groups. The electric field and temperature distributions at the molecular level will be modelled. The predicted temperatures will be compared to the measured temperatures.
