So, I just spent far to many hours reading about routes to phosphorous, thought it might be a good discussion topic.  Useful for making PCl3, PCl5, P2O5, and of cours P4.

The method that stuck out to me was the microwave route. 
Activated Charcoal
Phosphoric acid
nuke the sucker for 5 minutes or so.

No I have heard of this working, but it appears most hobbyist are of the faint of heart and don't necessarily want phosphorous compounds in, near or around them (who can blame em').  Well I thought up an adaption to the procedure and think it could remedy some of the sloppiness without requiring dangerous microwave drilling/modification.

So, the thought is to completely contain the reaction.  The problem would be how to trap the phosphorous when every things HOT, well simply put, an icebath.  The ice will melt slowly(because of the crystalline lattice it warms far slower then water) but the water will not boil condensing the phosphorous.

So first vessel sealed with an outlet connect to a tube.  tube carries gas to next vessel which is bubbled through the ice water.  That vessel has an outlet which is connected to a... balloon.  The balloon serves to contain all gaseous material making this experiment more user friendly.once complete, everything is removed from the microwave.  The balloon can be removed and either bubbled through the ice water again to pick up any remaining P4 or I believe you could separate out the P2O4 perhaps by freezing(would it work out that way?).  Or I suppose you could just take the gaseous mixture of P2O4 and red phosphorous and further react it with chlorine gas.

whole reaction can be visually monitored through the melting of the ice cubes and the volume of the gas in the balloon.  It can be aborted at any point.

Any bets whether this pipe dream will pan out?

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6207024.html  reference for microwave reaction.

I read all 28 pages today.  4 hours later this was my thought on it.  Everyone over there really embraces the Al/NaPO3/SiO2 route or the Ca3(PO4)2 route (more or less the same).  I'm not terribly taken by these methods for there use of arc furnaces and tube furnaces, or in one instance use of ungodly amounts of acetylene.

I am hoping the method I described works, even if the yield is miniscule.  It takes 5 minutes... You can just keep repeating the procedure and stockpiling the filled balloons and combining the P4 in water until you have yielded a satisfactory quantity to process.  My biggest concern is that the gaseous temperature will exceed rubbers melting temp, but with the ice bath thats not likely.  As far as I can tell gaseous don't really heat significantly in the microwave rather just expand there volume.

I think NaPO3 is not the way to go, however ca3(PO4)2 makes more sense as it's readily available.  I believe 1100 degrees C are necessary.

and you of course are right, I think my mind is atrophying from staring at molecules all day.  I'm thinking of being a little reckless and giving this a test run tomorrow.  Any last cautions before I give it a go?

I was also thinking that if this closed system doesn't work so well I was thinking just do the reaction in excess with a larger ice bath.  If I had to dedicate an outside microwave to phosphorous that wouldn't be a terrible loss.  Open ventilate repeat, then just keep collecting carefully.  I think this could be a messier way to quickly go about this.  I would prefer to do this cleanly though.

Of course not! lol
I plan on doing a micro scale try in the microwave outside.

I also bought some heavy pipe today, and I am thinking about trying the Calcium phosphate method by burying my metal pipe in a fire pit I have with the outlet bubbling through some ice water, if this works it might be a safer route, and considering the cost of triple phosphate fertilizer potentially a much cheaper method.

I also will be using my ghetto respirator.  essentially just a long stretch of plastic tubing that I can breath through to get air from substantially far away from were I'm working lol, it seems to work looks goofy as hell though.

Yes the microwave supposedly works but not without some troubles that make it a pain.  I gave it a go last night and got a negligible amount of white phosphorus.  I used nalgenes as my vessels and the one melted...  The whole method kind of sketches me out abit after trying it.  The size constraint of a microwave is also kind of a pain.

I am thinking I will try the calcium phosphate method next.  I did some research and it appears that charcoal should burn hot enough for the reaction rather then using an arc furnace, so I'm going to give that a try next weekend.

...and I was convinced that carbon turned to some funky plasma stuff in a microwave (after seeing matches burn in microwave). How did this experiment work? Any photos so I could attempt replicating it in a cheap microwave? How did you know it was indeed WP?

Bear in mind that liquified almost anhydrous phosphoric acid or polyphosphoric is going to a hell of a lot of damage to glassware potentially, IIRC it eats its way through glass.

Microwave heating can cause intense local hotspots also, in the case of fused salts, they can get point-heated to the point where temperature alone is sufficient to burn through borosillicate glass.

I had an interesting thought.  Thermite + Calcium phosphate in a graphite crucible.  the crucible connected to a pipe and filtered through an ice bath.  I think this could work in high yields and quickly.

The ideal crucible is available on everyones favorite auction site (I know I know... but its a crucible!), as is premixed thermite (lol'd when I saw that on there, I'd be a bit more concerned about picking that up).

I was thinking aluminum pipe would be the best as I doubt it wouldn't melt from the vapor heat.  Any other ideas for the piping?  I suppose a graphite rod could be obtained and drilled for the piping.