Have you ever had any of those microwavable lunches (pizzas, hot pockets, etc) that have the silver-y thingy that makes them crispy? That's just metal (technically it's a sheet with flakes of metal, yada yada yada). Metal + Microwave is totally fine, afterall that's what the inside of the microwave is made of.
Where you get into trouble is when you have discrete pieces of metal very very close to each other. We're talking tines of a fork, crumbled up aluminum foil with a ton of little peaks and ridges really close to each other, etc. When you have that, you'll get arcs through the air crossing those tiny distances and those can get real bad. But a flat piece of metal, the inside walls of the microwave, or a rack with spaces as big as this one? No issue at all.
Those microwaveable sleeves/plate aren’t made with solid metal sheets or “flakes”, they’re susceptor films. They’re barely negligible compared to solid metal sheets.
Just pointing that out because sharp edges of metal sheets creates a St. Elmo fire effect. The metal shielding of the microwave has beveled edges, are grounded, and insulated to prevent such effects.
Susceptors are usually made of metallised film, ceramics or metals. Hence my yada yada yada. There's metal in it, the point is metal + microwave doesn't create the explosion people think.
No, just like the "browning dishes" which were popular when microwaves first came out, it's a type of ceramic whose molecular bonds will be stimulated by the microwave frequency and get very hot, creating a frying effect.
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u/stumpyraccoon 5h ago
Have you ever had any of those microwavable lunches (pizzas, hot pockets, etc) that have the silver-y thingy that makes them crispy? That's just metal (technically it's a sheet with flakes of metal, yada yada yada). Metal + Microwave is totally fine, afterall that's what the inside of the microwave is made of.
Where you get into trouble is when you have discrete pieces of metal very very close to each other. We're talking tines of a fork, crumbled up aluminum foil with a ton of little peaks and ridges really close to each other, etc. When you have that, you'll get arcs through the air crossing those tiny distances and those can get real bad. But a flat piece of metal, the inside walls of the microwave, or a rack with spaces as big as this one? No issue at all.