Ian
Notorious member
Typically, silica gel dessicant which has reached its saturation limit can have the water driven back out by heating in an oven for a period of time (X temp at X time, usually several hours). This may or may not be convenient or efficient for small batches such as the little packs some of us save for storing with our bullet moulds.
In the automotive air conditioning world, moisture must be completely eliminated within the system for safety and function, so a deep vacuum is applied to the system to boil the water out where it can be removed. As an added measure, all systems have a dessicant pack located within the system somewhere to absorb any remaining trace amounts of moisture and trap it away from the refrigerant and oil.
So, the question is, how about instead of heat we just dump our saturated dessicant packets in a glass canning jar and use one of those handy-dandy infomercial vacuum pumps to draw down the pressure, and just put it away for a day or a month (as needed)? The water should boil out at room temperature into the space inside the jar and the packs could be removed quickly after taking off the lid to prevent immediate re-absorption of the moisture that would condense inside the jar when opened. Then the dried packs could be transferred to vacuum sealed bags and sucked down tight with no space around them for storage until needed.
Has anyone tried this?
In the automotive air conditioning world, moisture must be completely eliminated within the system for safety and function, so a deep vacuum is applied to the system to boil the water out where it can be removed. As an added measure, all systems have a dessicant pack located within the system somewhere to absorb any remaining trace amounts of moisture and trap it away from the refrigerant and oil.
So, the question is, how about instead of heat we just dump our saturated dessicant packets in a glass canning jar and use one of those handy-dandy infomercial vacuum pumps to draw down the pressure, and just put it away for a day or a month (as needed)? The water should boil out at room temperature into the space inside the jar and the packs could be removed quickly after taking off the lid to prevent immediate re-absorption of the moisture that would condense inside the jar when opened. Then the dried packs could be transferred to vacuum sealed bags and sucked down tight with no space around them for storage until needed.
Has anyone tried this?