The invention relates to a thermoplastic composition comprising the following: at least one thermoplastic polymer precursor, and at least one microwave depolymerization sensitizer compound. The invention likewise relates to a method for recycling an article, comprising: placing the article in a reactor, and applying microwave radiation at a given frequency to the article placed in the reactor.

A grafted polypropylene resin is prepared by a grafting reaction of a polar monomer capable of absorbing microwave so as to raise its temperature in a microwave field to more than 200° C. and a solid polypropylene resin using microwave irradiation without adding an initiator. The polar grafted polypropylene resin that does not contain initiator residues and does not have a significant reduction in molecular mass compared with a resin before grafting is obtained.

A method of hyperpolarizing diamond particles includes applying a laser to a sample of the diamond particles, irradiating the diamond particles with a sweeping microwave to cause diamond polarization, shuttling the diamond particles through a magnetic field to detect .sup.13C nuclei in the diamond particles, and relaying the diamond polarization to nuclear spins to one of a surrounding solid or fluid.

The present invention provides a containment vessel for cannabis and other plant materials where the microwave radiation pattern of an applicator is contained within the vessel allowing the efficient heating and removal of organic compounds. The radiation pattern is designed to induce a migrating phase boundary that heats the plant material while the containment vessel allows the collection of liquid and vapor phase organic compounds.

The invention includes a gas processing system for transforming a hydrocarbon-containing inflow gas into outflow gas products, where the system includes a gas delivery subsystem, a plasma reaction chamber, and a microwave subsystem, with the gas delivery subsystem in fluid communication with the plasma reaction chamber, so that the gas delivery subsystem directs the hydrocarbon-containing inflow gas into the plasma reaction chamber, and the microwave subsystem directs microwave energy into the plasma reaction chamber to energize the hydrocarbon-containing inflow gas, thereby forming a plasma in the plasma reaction chamber, which plasma effects the transformation of a hydrocarbon in the hydrocarbon-containing inflow gas into the outflow gas products, which comprise acetylene and hydrogen. The invention also includes methods for the use of this gas processing system.

Disclosed apparatuses, systems, and materials relate to the disassociation of feedstock species (such as those in gaseous form) into constituent components, and may include an energy generator configured to provide a microwave energy. A first chamber defines a first volume and is configured to guide the microwave energy along the first chamber as a sinusoidal wave having an energy maxima at a point along the first chamber. A second chamber contains a plasma plume and is positioned substantially proximal to the first chamber, and is configured to enable propagation of the microwave energy through the first chamber and the second chamber such that the microwave energy demonstrates, at a radial center of the second chamber, a coaxial energy maxima configured to ignite the plasma plume contained in the second chamber. Carbon-containing materials may be formed by controlling flow parameters of the feedstock species into the first or second chamber.

The invention refers to a modular continuous flow device for automated chemical multistep synthesis under continuous flow conditions. The device comprises a plurality of different types of continuous flow modules and a valve assembly for connecting the continuous flow modules to each other in a parallel or radial manner. This arrangement allows conducting chemical reaction sequences by pre-synthesizing and intermediately storing or simultaneously synthesizing at least one intermediate product which is needed in the main synthetic reaction sequence in order to obtain the final product.

The present invention relates to a process, reactor and system to produce self-standing two-dimensional nanostructures, using a microwave-excited plasma environment. The process is based on injecting, into a reactor, a mixture of gases and precursors in stream regime. The stream is subjected to a surface wave electric field, excited by the use of microwave power which is introduced into a field applicator, generating high energy density plasmas, that break the precursors into its atomic and/or molecular constituents. The system comprises a plasma reactor with a surface wave launching zone, a transient zone with a progressively increasing cross-sectional area, and a nucleation zone. The plasma reactor together with an infrared radiation source provides a controlled adjustment of the spatial gradients, of the temperature and the gas stream velocity.

Applying electromagnetic energy to a hydrocarbon feed in the presence of at least one of a solvent, a catalyst, an electromagnetic receptor or a hydrogenation agent may result in depolymerization and compositional modification of the hydrocarbon feedstock into at least one of smaller hydrocarbon product fractions or viscosity modification.

A microwave energy source that generates a microwave energy is disclosed. The microwave energy source has an on-state and an off-state. A control circuit is coupled to the microwave energy source and includes an output to generate a control signal that adjusts a pulse frequency of the microwave energy. A voltage generator applies a non-zero voltage to the microwave energy source during the off-state. A frequency and a duty cycle of the non-zero voltage is based on a frequency and a duty cycle of the control signal. A waveguide is coupled to the microwave energy source. The waveguide has a supply gas inlet that receives a supply gas, a reaction zone that generates a plasma, a process inlet that injects a raw material into the reaction zone, and an outlet that outputs a powder based on a mixture of the supply gas and the raw material within the plasma.