Is an air-jacketed water bath compatible with Lab Armor Beads?
In general, air-jacketed baths provide better overall heat distribution and temperature gradients. The air jacket that surrounds the tub portion of the bath allows the heated air generated by the heat element at the base of the tub to also warm the walls of the tub. Since bead baths primarily rely on heat conduction (heat transfer by contact), baths with heated walls transfer heat to the beads from 4 directions. Baths without air jackets less efficiently heat the beads from the bottom only. There is another potential design problem with some non-air-jacketed baths. If the bath’s heating element is not recessed below the tub, but it is instead fixed to the tub by metal-to-metal contact, the base of the bath can become very hot in areas where contact is made. This produces hot spots on the bottom, which results in uneven gradients in the bath. Small sized heating elements that only cover a small portion of the base of the tub makes this problem worse. Such baths produce hot spots even wh
