How Silica Gel Took Over the World
scopeofwork.net
scopeofwork.net
Balls of hard candy shaped and packaged like silica gel!
Perfect for April 1st.
Why danger symbols can’t last forever.
What a weird thing to say. No organized religion or ritualized tradition has ever lasted that long.
I think there’s also a cave in the Middle East where there is evidence that it had been a ritual centre for 30000 years.
And you could probably make a relatively convincing argument that the ‘dying and rising god’ tradition that underpins Christian ritual is just a syncretic continuum going backwards from Jesus Christ to Dionysus to Osiris to Iah to moon deities - the moon being a ‘dying and rising’ entity, which itself underpins a wide tradition of fertility ritual.
So although it’s a stretch there is maybe some logic behind the statement!
In Australia they're very proud of asserting things like that, but obviously there is no evidence it's true. On the other hand, there's lots of evidence that that doesn't happen.
> Because these traditions were passed down orally or through generational practice they have gradually been lost which is sad.
The fact that this mechanism of loss exists is already sufficient to prove that a tradition can't last 10,000 years.
Based on this article I think that there's is a reasonable body of evidence to suggest it might be true. Sure, not irrefutable evidence, but evidence does exist.
I'd be genuinely interested to see evidence that it doesn't happen, too, though.
> The fact that this mechanism of loss exists is already sufficient to prove that a tradition can't last 10,000 years.
That seems a bit of a non-sequitur, and without being a glib keyboard warrior Sagan's "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is pretty relevant here.
As I argued previously, there's a fairly strong line from ancient fertility rituals to Christian tradition, and I'm not sure that those syncretic routes are particularly disputed at a top level. I agree that there are definitely people who run away with those sorts of inheritances and make all sorts of claims using them, but the simple thread of "moon > fertility > Iah > Osiris > Dionysus > Christ" is not (as I understand it) particularly contested.
So I'm not sure that a "mechanism of loss" is proof that a ritual can't last 10,000 years in native populations with an exclusively oral cultural tradition - it might be fairer to say that we have no proof that it can persist.
Again, I don't have the reference, but I remember reading something that was essentially "the archaeology of story telling" tracing early oral tradition through to things like fairy tales, to the modern day.
Similarly, things like flood myths and myths around the seven sisters - the latter of which astronomers think could be as much as 100,000 years old - indicate to me that stories, and by extension ritual, could persist for far longer than 10,000 years.
You can "recharge" silical gel by baking in the oven at 120 C for a couple of hours. If you do, be careful to remove the casing before you do, unless it is heat safe.
I have a small collection of oven safe dessicant packs that I keep on hand for emergency drying electronics.
I did find a clever solution online that tried to induce mechanical suction on your phone to force the vapour out, but it was too expensive for a one off use.
In the end I had to resort to the food dryer anyway, after the silica gel failed to work.
I use silca gel for storing 3D printing filament and long-term clothes storage.
TIL about the microwaving trick. I'll have to find out more about it. My concern would be the gel beads popping from internal pressure.
You can check the color to see whether it's time to microwave them, and whether they are dry once you microwaved them.
It is certainly not something like a poison, where small quantities can have harmful effects, at least not for most people.
Like nickel, cobalt can cause allergies in some people, in which case repeated exposure can have serious effects even in small quantities, in those humans who are sensitive to it.
The instructions on tge cover say 3 minutes at 700W in the microwave.
All ionic cobalt salts are toxic so cobalt chloride is not used as an indicator in silica gell packaged for use with food. That said, it's an excellent indicator for telling whether your silica gell is still working or not.
These fit the bill. Assuming they're not straight-up lying or anything...
https://www.amazon.com/Rechargeable-Desiccant-Dehumidifiers-...?
(By default, I've been assuming it's not sufficiently safe.)
So by itself cobalt chloride could not cause any problem.
However, I have no idea whether the cobalt chloride is not mixed with some organic binder, to make it stick to the silica gel beads, which could burn in the oven, though that is also unlikely to happen before all water is removed from the gel, allowing an increase in temperature above the boiling temperature of water.
By using low microwave power and short time, so that no boiling of the contained water should be seen, it should be possible to dry even beads with cobalt chloride.
Also, where are people even still getting cobalt chloride gel? Do they still make it? I sure wouldn't buy any.
I wouldn't even buy the orange to green stuff by choice these days for anything DIY, it's still too toxic when mechanical hygrometers are cheap.
One of the things that kills wet electronics is the dried residue that is left behind, creating shorts. Alcohol will wash away the water and leave no residue after it dries.
If the device has ink or glue you'd like to try to preserve, deionized water will mostly work too.
It did get significantly hot after a while. And smelly, so it was surely aerosoling (is that a word?) somewhat.
I did it outdoors and away from anything that could catch fire because it felt rightly sketchy.
The easiest option is to just fill a plastic food bag with solvent, throw your part in, seal it with a clip and float it in your ultrasonic bath. The bag contains the vapour for safety, and it's easy to switch between different solvents and solutions.
And someone is already doing it:
https://besservacuum.com/en/ultrasonic-food-treatment-machin...
Also kinda explody.
I ruined a Thinkpad display the same way in the past, so I went for broke.
Where I am ethanol (EtOH-95%, H2O-5%) is much cheaper and much more readily available and works almost as well. If silica gel is not available, then a fan works well followed by a warm (not hot) oven baking. Make sure the alcohol has essentially all evaporated first.
Keep in mind that some components can be affected by both EtOH and propan-2-ol — component markings, coil doping resins can dissolve, etc. Both alcohols are also good at removing solder flux resins/residues. (Oh for the days when freon and freon mixtures were available, component damage never happened.)
Devices with power transformers pose special problems, best to dry with alcohol first (hoping enamel coatings on wire aren't softened), then bake in oven on warm heat for a long while, sometimes 24 hours or more is necessary. With transformers it's important that this is done as soon as possible after wetting.
Edit: as I'm reminded by nyanpasu64 keep both alcohols away from LCD screens (likely all screens). I had a netbook PC and put it in a carry bag with a bottle of EtOH and it leaked. The PC still worked but the screen suffered the same outcome.
Here, one liter bottles of denatured ethanol are available in every supermarket everywhere, and up to 20 liters available in hardware stores (at bulk rates it's even cheaper).
For comparison, here denatured ethanol costs about $5/l [in US dollars] versus isopropyl at between $25 and $30/l.
Some people will drink EtOH whether it's denatured with MeOH, etc. or with the much safer denatonium. Why blind or kill these people when one doesn't need to? Sure, EtOH will likely get them anyway but why should the State be their executioner?
There's something awfully wrong with that I reckon.
Amazon wouldn't even ship the stuff here. I'm coming to realize that any truly potent or powerful substance is strictly off-limits in consumer spaces. Plenty of good reasons for that. But such things as pure isopropyl and pure H2O2 are so versatile and tantalizing to have on-hand, rather than household cleaners with proprietary formulas, as much dilution as possible, unique MSDS, and obnoxious fake fragrance.
I can walk down an entire aisle in the hardware store, chockablock with bottles of household cleaners, and they all amount to 2 or 3 active ingredients, endlessly remixed for credulous homemakers.
"I'm coming to realize that any truly potent or powerful substance is strictly off-limits in consumer spaces."
There's no doubt about this and it's a damn pain. Outside industrial settings, chemicals that really work are becoming very difficult to get. I accept that highly concentrated (say >50%) H2O2 is dangerous and not something I want or need, and fuel grade (>70%) needs special handling thus the need for controls, but concentrations of about 20% are useful for bleaching where sodium hypochlorite is unsuitable, etc. For example, 6% H2O2 often isn't strong enough to remove foxing from documents, books, etc. so having ready access to a more concentrated solution that I could dilute to suit would be very useful.
It wasn't always like this, I'm old enough to remember when I could get most chemicals I wanted with little effort. Unfortunately, both occupational health and safety and terrorism have put the kibosh on ready availability, controls and restrictions have screwed all of us legitimate users.
Of course, restrictions covering to whom chemicals are sold haven't detrimentally affected the chemical companies one iota, in fact I'd maintain they've benefited them. They've proteced companies from potential lawsuits when users misuse chemicals and they've provided endless possibilities for them to market nigh-on-useless products to naïve consumers like the household cleaners to which you have referred. I could give examples of how some common household products have become less potent over the years but it'd take a full blog to go into details.
There's another downside here too, the less consumers know about the chemicals they use the more unskilled they become at actual chemistry—even if taught chemistry, using products whose ingredients are unknown doesn't add to their understanding. That's also a matter that I've not time to elaborate about here except to say lack of knowledge about chemicals is one of the significant reasons why society is becoming overly chemical-phobic.
The color indicating ones are useful so you can see when they are dry.
Is your equipment shipped in non-airtight containers, like cardboard boxes? That silica gel will absorb all the water it can before it leaves the factory. It effectively does nothing after that.
Are your silica gel packets stored in non-airtight bags? In that case, they're spent before they enter the packagin at all.
Did you save a bunch of silica gel packets from stuff Amazon sent you, and use them to "dry out" your gym gear (I have known friends to do this). Those packets are long-since "full", and do nothing. (My friend: "Well, it can't hurt!" And it also can't help.)
They aren't cordless water pumps, moving humidity out of the air perpetually into their contents - but that's how most people view them.
You can use MS to dry flowers in record time... and use it to quickly heat up baby food in a pinch if needed... just put a smaller container of food in a bigger pod filled with MS and pour water of the MS... it's ultra-rapid absorption of water creates heat as a byproduct.
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43498489>
Those are used in vacuum-sealed windows and glazings (the topic of the post I was commenting to).
There are also moisture scavengers put into cooling applications (refrigerators and A/C) to remove any incidental water from refrigerant, which I suspect operate more like your MSDBs.
(This is not to say dessicant packets aren't used in food, just that not all of those packets are dessicants)
Silica packets are definitely used in foods that need to be kept super-dry, like seaweed or nuts -- absorbing residual moisture that was in the product during packaging.
I've never heard of an oxygen absorber used in food. A lot of snacks and things (e.g. all potato chips) in airtight containers are packaged in nitrogen so there's no oxygen in the first place.
Are they for small-scale food production that can't use nitrogen? I've never encountered them in my life.
They seem to be fairly common with packages of jerky and other self-stable cured meats.
I've never seen it for a European product.
It is heavily used in diapers, tissues, water retention for plants, etc. SAP can absorb liquid up to 30-60 times its own volume.
It's fun that it has the same refractive index as water, so if you put clear ones in water they disappear. Then you ask someone to put their had in a bowl with them for a surprise.
They make glow in the dark ones, which I put into a masonry jar with some distilled water and a drop of bleach, I light it from underneath with a USB LED and it glows for about an hour. Cool night time light.
Back in the early 90s they had a different name and they were irregularly shaped. This was for Soil Amendment. I think it started with a Z.
"Well, everyone's going to die eventually."
"Everyone? Oh my God... WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?"
For us Americans, that's about 8600 square feet...and around a seventh of a football field.
I honestly have no idea how big a basketball court is.
My school did have these basketball boards but we never used them and I'm pretty sure the room was not sized for them either.
I rarely make comments on HN that are mostly just humorous and not actually intending to be on-topic... but every once a year or so.
Wikipedia has a better article.[1]
> You can just microwave them too, on low power... Oven drying has the advantage that you can set the temperature so there's no risk of overheating anything.
It's hard to hurt silica gel itself with kitchen level heat. Melting point 1200C. The packet it comes in is more of a risk. Although there are forms with other chemicals that change color when humid. Also, heating wet desiccant fast enough to produce steam might crack the material.
Turns out, it just tasted like disappointment and regret. 10/10 would not recommend, but at least I lived to tell the tale!
https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-186193...
They are probably quite harmful if large pieces get eaten in non-small quantities. Or powder in large quantities that are not previously mixed with a liquid. But I don't know of anybody that tested that.
"Silica gel is irritating to the respiratory tract and may cause irritation of the digestive tract. Dust from the beads may cause irritation to the skin and eyes, so precautions should be taken."
Also from the same page:
"Silica gel, also referred to as silicon dioxide or synthetic amorphous silica (SAS), is listed by the FDA in the United States as generally recognized as safe (GRAS), meaning it can be added to food products without needing approval. Silica is allowed to be added to food in the US at up to 2% as permitted under 21 CFR 172.480. In the EU, it can be in up to 5% concentrations. In 2018, a re-evaluation by the EFSA Panel on Food Additives and Nutrient Sources added to Food found no indications of toxicity even at the highest estimates of exposure level."
"Listed uses include: anticaking agent, defoaming agent, stabilizer, adsorbent, carrier, conditioning agent, chill proofing agent, filter aid, emulsifying agent, viscosity control agent, and anti-settling agent. Silica can be found commonly in foods including baked goods, spices and herbs, dairy products, cocoa products, and more."
Irritation is not toxicity? I guess not, but it seems like irritation should be also be considered when adding it to food. Long term irritation can be a health issue.
Even if not packaged with food, these sachects left on the table while unboxing, e.g. a pair of shoes, might entice kids... And it's just easier to print "DO NOT EAT" rather than have separate production lines for "for shoes" and "for food".
Although, from the description, it seems they're perfectly safe (because they're inert) to eat...
This reads like something from The Three Body Problem :)
Can someone help explain this? I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this. The tiny packet has this much surface area due to how much space exists within the balls???
[1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/man-jailed-in-bust-of-the-yea...
https://radiolab.org/podcast/forever-fresh
Tldr: those plastic bags that salads come in are WAY more interesting than you think. They're selectively permeable membranes that only allow certain gasses in/out.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8hb1jh @ 00:02:00