Industrial, Scientific, and Artisanal Use
Outside the culinary world, ovens are used for a number of purposes.
- A furnace can be used either to provide heat to a building or used to melt substances such as glass or metal for further processing. A blast furnace is a particular type of furnace generally associated with metal smelting (particularly steel manufacture) using refined coke or similar hot-burning substance as a fuel, with air pumped in under pressure to increase the temperature of the fire.
- A kiln is a high-temperature oven used in wood drying, ceramics and cement manufacturing to convert mineral feedstock (in the form of clay or calcium or aluminum rocks) into a glassier, more solid form. In the case of ceramic kilns, a shaped clay object is the final result, while cement kilns produce a substance called clinker that is crushed to make the final cement product. (Certain types of drying ovens used in food manufacture, especially those used in malting, are also referred to as kilns.)
- An autoclave is an oven-like device with features similar to a pressure cooker that allows the heating of aqueous solutions to higher temperatures than water's boiling point in order to sterilize the contents of the autoclave.
- Industrial ovens are similar to their culinary equivalents and are used for a number of different applications that do not require the high temperatures of a kiln or furnace.
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