How do I heat my borosilicate reflux column? I am gonna use a ceramic tape heater, but cannot wrap it around evenly. Is the glass column gonna be okay?



I am running some tests on plastic pyrolysis. I am using the reflux condenser to make the heavier hydrocarbons flow back into the boiling flask. I am also trying out various catalyst in the reflux condenser which will facilitate catalytic cracking.

I have decided to maintain the temperature at top of the reflux column to be of 150C and it will allow the lighter fraction to be removed off and the heavier fraction to be condensed back into the boiling flask. 

The boiling flask is made up of quartz and the rest of the glassware is borosilicate.

I am gonna use the glass setup to test catalysts. If results are satisfactory, will get a microreactor made up of steel for further testing. I can better monitor and control temperature in a metal setup I think. Gonna try on only PE and PP types of plastic.

I am a structural engineer by profession and am new to organic chemistry. Thanks for you help in advance.
That should pose no issue regarding the glass

Without images to see how unevenly you will apply the heat, I have to modify my instinctual reaction "That cannot possibly be an issue" to "Most likely it will be OK". I'd be much more worried about variation in the distilling if you are at some point drawing a distillate. If you cannot control the heat flux, the yield and temperature profile will be offset from the theoretical and can (if the process is delicate) lead to variation in the results.

But borosilicate glass is sturdy, you can probably heat it with a naked propane flame - it is designed to have a low thermal expansion coefficient. Directly from that, it will have a high thermal shock resistance.