Abstract
Far infrared heating has been developed mainly in Japan on its own. But according to its unusual ability of optimizing the heating process, its commercial development has been rather limited. Besides, there has been a misunderstanding in Western countries that far infrared heating could not be realized in a high temperature region with far infrared heaters. Recently, experimental research has proved that far infrared heaters radiate energy mainly in the wave length over 3μm even at high temperatures. New application areas such as display related process are requiring higher temperature treatment than ever. To meet this condition, furnaces with their operating temperatures of exceeding 1000℃ are developed. In these furnaces, furnace brick walls heated with high temperature heaters such as near infrared heaters act as far infrared radiators even at such high temperatures.
