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Comment by miles | Hacker News Reader

The effectiveness of commercial desiccants and uncooked rice in removing moisture from hearing aids[1]:

"White rice shows promise as an effective alternative to commercial desiccants in reducing moisture in hearing aids when silica gel products are unavailable."

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27869510/

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Everytime I get anything with a bag of silica gel (electronic product boxes, medication bottles etc.), I toss the bag into an airtight plastic tub where I collect them. I've only needed to use the tub a few times, but it's always worked to remove moisture from electronic devices and cost me nothing.

You can also reuse them after they're saturated if you remove the moisture by heating them up.

I've been doing that for dry boxes to store 3D printing filaments for years.

That's on hearing aids not sure if this finding is transferrable to smartphones. Here is the recommendation from experts in fixing electronics https://www.ifixit.com/Wiki/Do_Not_Put_Your_Device_in_Rice

> Open your device as soon as you can, take out the battery

Well. Fuck.

There’s probably a piece missing in the article’s simplified explanation, but if corrosion were in fact “instant” as claimed, nothing should help, as the damage would already be done. Probably it’s not really instant, just very fast, and displacing the water with alcohol is the quickest way to get it out before it can do even more damage.

Explanation literally doesn't make sense.

I wonder if rice could be used to dry 3D printer filament? Can the rice be recharged by drying in the oven like silica gel?

You can place rice on a baking tray spread out very thin for a day or so. Also dry it in the sun for added effect.

If you have extra, then deep fry it. Great cheap crunchy addition to some meals. It’s a key ingredient in Thai rice salad, or “khao yum”.

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