and, much to my astonishment, I can find many (really many) sites who pretend that for induction cooking "you NEED ferromagnetic material" in your pots.
In my understanding of induction, that is B*S* of the irst order.
One possibility though, is that the ferromagnetic (iron, steel) stuff will make the system work "better" or "more efficient", in concentrating the magnetic fields, BUT there too I have my doubts.
And to top that, a vendor-site ( dejelin_dot_com ) only talks about "metal pots", about "the system auto-detects the presence of a metal pot", but doesn't insist on "iron".
As the principle of induction talks about "a changing magnetic flux through a surface", that creates an electric field within said surface , there doesn't seem to be much need for the surface to be iron.
The surface can now be: a conductor, or an insulator.
Of course, if it's an insulator (microwave recipients, oven dishes in glass, pyrex etc) the electrical field will NOT yield an electrical current, and no_current_at_all cannot make heat, not even in an insulating material with a theoretical resistance of "almost infinity". if there are "no free electrons", there is nothing that could "follow the electrical field", and thus no current and no dissipation of heat is induced.
But in a conductor (almost the definition of "metal" ) there are plenty "free electrons", who will immediately "follw the electrical field", so creating currents within the metal substance of the bottom of the pot. This current creates heat, because nobody would make pots out of a zero-resistance material (superconductive pots would be very expensive, and would bounce off the magnetic field as well)
So my previous "guess" is now enforced: I don't believe the "must be iron" hype, and I go with "good quality metal"
Anyone who can falsify my reasoning here ?
(oops: 'till tomorrow , have nice chats ) |
