OT Does a microwave oven kill airborne germs?

On Wed, 23 Dec 2015 20:02:58 -0000 (UTC), John Doe Gave us:

Nope. Be lucky if they get their molecules flipped at all.

Hmm, I'm not sure how many bacteria (germs?) hang out in the air. I think they like moist places. And some bacteria go into a dormant (perhaps dehydrated) state when not in a "good" environment.

I do know that tardigrade can dry out....

George H.

I wouldn't expect a bug or germ to be heated any faster than food. When was the last time bits of your food were instantly dehydrated or exploded? I would expect a small entity to be adversely affected if you ran the oven empty for a long enough time. It's not like all the heat goes into a single spot while running.

Since they are considerably smaller than the wavelength of the energy, they dont absorb any significant power.

Even small ants survive quite happily in a microwave with the power on.

Years ago I tried microwaves for purging some flour beetles from a sack of dearly-gotten flour.

I'd imagined it a death-ray, wrath-of-the-gods thing. Didn't work-- they liked it.

Cheers, James Arthur

Nope -- too small. It's a bulk heating effect only (that, and standing waves). Maybe if you heat long enough that the object becomes boiling hot, and the wet steam fills the chamber (hey, that sounds like a great start to cleaning a messy oven, too!).

To heat individual dust particles, you need wavelengths as small, which basically means burning lasers. CO2 probably doesn't work well on, say, individual bacterium or virus particles (

Huh, If they (the ants) are at a local maximum (of the E field) don't they get all the energy? Maybe they are able to get rid of it quickly also... surface to volume ratio?

George H.

James, I hope you a "staunch republican" have not been shopping at the local food coop. (From where comes this infested flour? :^) And hey a little protein in the bread could be a good thing.

George H.

Hi Tim, I'm still confused. I mean at some point I can heat stuff with DC... wavelengths bigger than the earth.

George H.

OK some thermal balance, heat in, minus radiation loss and loss to air.

GH

So can you heat small things or not??? People are saying a lot of stuff here that isn't making sense.

A good load of crap here. So you are saying a small drop of water won't heat up? Of course it does. Just like a huge wave in the ocean will knock you down when it hits you. Wavelength doesn't prevent microwaves from heating things. They just have to be able to absorb that frequency, like individual water molecules. The molecules don't care much how big of a drop they are in.

Microwave ovens heat from the outside-in just like conventional ovens. That's why I would think that a loan molecule of water would be fried instantly.

Easy enough to test. Put a drop of water next to a bowl of soup.

On Wed, 23 Dec 2015 16:15:21 -0800 (PST), snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com Gave us:

It'll tickle yer innards!

Zillions of them. That's why a brief exposure of sterile milk or jello or something will make it go bad. Louis Pasteur and all that.

Germs make clouds, too.

Have you never spilled any soup in the microwave? Even without a bowl next to it, the drop can't absorb all the energy in the over because it doesn't pass through the drop.

BTW, to say it heats from the outside in is a very big oversimplification. ALL ovens heat from the outside in, no? The microwaves are absorbed in water molecules. By the time the waves penetrate around an inch they are pretty much absorbed. So people think it heats "from the outside in". The waves heat anything that absorbs them.

Microwave ovens heat food fairly evenly, as is evident if you ever burn anything in a microwave, (eg cookies, or microwave popcorn) the interior of the food burns first (because it is better insulated)

They're partly transparent to microwave energy, so no.

there is that too.

On a sunny day (Wed, 23 Dec 2015 20:02:58 -0000 (UTC)) it happened John Doe wrote in :

I once heated up some water in the microwave, and when I opened the door I did see a spider in the corner, I touched it expecting it to be dead, and it ran. Now microves are only small part of a few cm wavelangth so not mudh field across their body I'd think.

UV is frequently used for partial sterilization. Problem are that sometimes bio-films are formed in which germs are hiding and where the UV can not penetrate deep enough.

joe