Yes, Be is pretty nasty. There are very few places in the USA that will work with it, which makes it terribly expensive to deal with. It's quite literally far more dangerous than asbestos when inhaled.
Beryllium is used (was used, it's probably aluminum oxide now because cheap) in microwaves as Beryllium Oxide (BeO) due to it's incredible thermal conduction properties. It has an immense capacity to take heat away from a source, more than most metals and just somewhat less than diamond.
Ok. So which part of the emitter is actually beryllium? I'm very concerned because I cracked open a couple of them just because I wanted to see how they were made. The coil inside I couldn't figure out what sort of metal it was and being told it was just the tip didn't compute for me as the tip looks like it's just copper.
I'm super glad I didn't get the idea to use a grinder to open one of those. But, when I was told it had beryllium in it I felt a chill of fear as I remember working at that processing place and all the clothes changing and enforced showing was a clue just how serious they were about the stuff.
So, maybe it's just more dangerous when it's being processed?
So, could elements be used for a heat sink in computers rather than those aluminum radiators on the CPU?
There are portions of the magnetron that look like ceramic insulators. That's the BeO. It's typically the portion that's under the emitter tip and it goes into the finned body of the unit. In this picture. the reddish-brown material that looks like burnt ceramic would be the BeO.
You could use BeO for heat sinks, but it's toxicity and expense makes that prohibitive. It's easier to use copper or aluminum, which have relatively few side effects.
Ok. I currently don't have any used microwaves to take apart but next time I do I'll look closely. Fortunately I did all this outdoors and only broke open a few emitters.
I carefully took the ends off a couple emitters to see inside as I was very curious as to the construction.
Many of the microwaves I see tossed to the curb in residential areas are not even in that bad of condition. Maybe a fuse out or something.
The smaller ones that don't have the plate with the cog on the bottom, those are the best plates to use for eating. The ones with the three lobed cog are no good since it high centers. It's a shame to toss them in the trash.
Yes, that's exactly the part I was breaking because I thought it was just an electrical insulator. Inside is the copper fins. The caps sealing off the main body are some sort of steel since a magnet is attracted to them but somehow they've welded those caps onto the copper. Some sort of maybe a friction weld maybe. It's a very smooth automatic looking weld but you can rip the steel caps off by tearing next to the weld. Inside the device is a coil of silvery looking metal if I remember right that leads to a copper tube that's pinched off sharp at the end under than tin cap on the end. I was told the tip of that copper tube is beryllium but you're saying the ceramic is beryllium oxide ceramic and used for heat dissipation? So, as long as you don't crush the BeO, grind it or get too friendly with you it's ok? What about those aluminum fins? They are also for heat distribution?
And what if I find a tossed out industrial microwave oven? Much larger emitters or nah?
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