A microwave oven that heats only the desired location or object has been developed, and it is expected to contribute to achieving carbon neutrality by reducing unnecessary energy wasted in industrial heat treatment such as semiconductors.

The Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI, President Myeong-ho Myeong) announced on the 6th that Dr. Soon-shin Jeong's team at the Electric Environment Research Center has developed the core source technology for the next-generation 'smart microwave oven' that can heat a desired location or object to a desired temperature only as much as needed.

Microwave ovens, which heat food using microwaves, a type of electromagnetic wave, have long been an essential home appliance. However, since the waves of microwaves vary spatially and cannot be individually controlled, there are often cases where heating is uneven, which has led to many inconveniences.

KERI's achievement to solve this problem is the so-called 'right heat, right spot, smart microwave heating technology' that allows users to heat only the necessary amount of heat where they want by significantly changing the wavelength of microwaves with just a little frequency adjustment. The basic principle is to control the heating location by adjusting the spatial distribution of microwaves by freely increasing or decreasing the wavelength of the microwaves.

The research team used a frequency control method to quickly and precisely change the wavelength. Typically, each device that utilizes electromagnetic waves has an allowed frequency band, but in the past, even if the frequency was changed, the wavelength change was so minimal that it was difficult to reach the stage of actual use.

On the other hand, if you utilize the technology that KERI has developed after many years of effort, you can achieve a wavelength change that is as much as 100 times greater than before by adjusting the frequency by just 1%.

The ability to widely control the microwave heating location through these wavelength changes means that both ‘uniform heating’ and ‘targeted heating’ are possible.

The KERI research team's 'uniform heating' level is the world's best, and when heating the object to be heated, it heats evenly so that the overall temperature difference is almost always less than 10%.

'Target heating' reflects the target temperature for each part of the object to be heated, and when the user selects a heating location, it intensively heats that part to the desired temperature.

If we develop this further, we could heat different foods together at different desired temperatures.

The technology can be applied to next-generation 'smart microwave ovens' for home and commercial use, and can be used for efficient heating in various production processes in industries such as semiconductors, automobiles, carbon fiber, and diamonds.

Currently, our country's heat treatment energy efficiency is only about 60% of that of advanced countries, but it is expected that microwave heating technology will be able to minimize energy loss and greatly contribute to the government's goal of achieving carbon neutrality.

Dr. Jeong Sun-shin of KERI said, “This is a groundbreaking technology that controls the heating location by significantly changing the wavelength with a slight frequency adjustment, increasing user convenience and reducing energy consumed for heating unnecessary objects.” He added, “Through continuous research, “We want to develop a technology that can effectively heat even metal objects that are not well heated by microwaves, thereby greatly expanding the scope of their application,” he said.

Meanwhile, the research results related to this achievement were published in papers in 'Applied Thermal Engineering' and 'Journal of Materials Chemistry A', which are SCI-level international academic journals with global authority in the fields of thermal engineering and electrical materials, respectively, and were recognized for their high level of technology.

KERI, which has completed domestic and international patent applications related to the original technology, expects that this achievement will receive much attention from various industries that require efficient heating, and plans to promote technology transfer by discovering related demand companies.