Microwaveable solvents

A common experiment involves holding an electrostatically charged rod or balloon near to the streams from burettes filled with a variety of solvents. This demonstrates how polar the solvent is. You can perform a similar experiment to show how the polarity of a solvent affects how efficiently a microwave oven can heat it. This effect can be exploited by chemists allowing for more efficient heating of reactants in solution - reactions can often be far quicker and more selective under microwave conditions.

With accompanying video and a link to an article to aid discussion, Declan Fleming demonstrates how to set up and teach a solvent polarity demonstration.