Energy efficiency has always been
an inherent problem of microwave
heating. In this work, the higher heating efficiency of the elliptically
polarized microwave electric field is investigated via MD simulations,
aiming to examine the multidirectional polarization effect during
microwave heating. The MD results show that the heating efficiency
growth rates of EtOH, AcOH, DMSO, H2O, and DMF are 3.17%,
3.92%, 4.14%, 5.00%, and 27.06% sequentially larger with the elliptically
polarized microwave electric field (EF) than those with the linearly
polarized microwave EF. Energy analyses indicate that the utilization
rate of microwave energy would be increased of the elliptically polarized
microwave EF with the same electric field intensities. The higher
decay speed of the rotation autocorrelation function curves of elliptically
polarized EF presents that the sample molecules do have a more frequent
rotational motion to align with the varying polarization directions.
Additionally, dielectric properties analysis gave the relation between
the heating efficiency growth rate and the loss tangent of the samples.
This microwave heating method is expected to be a new route to improve
the microwave heating efficiency.