Heartfelt beads

[backbone]

Experiment time!

I never charged my beads with a spray bottle, just ambient water vapor, so I  charged my "60%" RH HF beads last night like the directions say and viola 70%RH this morning in the newair.

Not my goal RH at all so time to dry them out!

Nothing ventured nothing gained...

 

[PigFish]

1 hour ago, backbone said:

Experiment time!

I never charged my beads with a spray bottle, just ambient water vapor, so I  charged my "60%" RH HF beads last night like the directions say and viola 70%RH this morning in the newair.

Not my goal RH at all so time to dry them out!

Nothing ventured nothing gained...

 

What matters of course is if a product 'works for you, and you are happy.'

Most have noticed that I have an obsession with cigar environment. Frankly, I am an expert on it! I got that way understanding how systems work so that I can diagnose problems. As I am a maker of climate controlled humidors, this ability and skill is important to me.

You know, most people don't care why it works, until it does not work. And, that is why I post a lot about 'why things work' or what does not work, and why!

The other day I wrote another post for this thread, rewrote it 5 or 6 times and realized it just looked like I was picking on a vendor and their products, so I trashed it! There was no point in posting it.

I wanted to congratulate you for picking up the ball and trying it for yourself. It is now proven to you empirically 'how beaded desiccants work.' Now you not only believe (someone like me) buy you know because you have tried it and proven it to yourself...

Bravo brother! Cheers! -Piggy

[Fugu]

Also not trying to Bead'ing a dead horse, guys, so pls bear with me and sorry in advance.

Interesting issue. I was wondering the same as @SloppyJ. First of all I have to say, I don't know HF beads. Checked their website and have been looking for technical or safety data sheets ...- nothing. So, their actual composition remains the company's secret (other than Boveda for instance).

 

On 10/08/2016 at 8:38 PM, PigFish said:

Yup!

So, Piggy do you think they are simply all the same silica gel? I am actually not sure about that, but can only speculate here. Perhaps this is so, but then the company's claim of providing an equil. atmosphere of different rH really would be hokum. Perhaps that is what it is, but isn't it conceivable that there are different preparations of those HF-beads in existence? E.g. silica gels (if it is SiO₂-based) can be formulated with a different amount of polymerization/grid structure (different amount of condensation of reactive groups), and perhaps also other hydroactive groups and/or elements introduced? For instance, the polarity of the active surface in silica gels can be widely influenced by addition of non-polar groups to the gel's -OH groups. What is essential in the end would be that you get a range of different water activity-properties of the final product. A different formulation or perhaps a mixing of different proportions of those beads would then allow it to produce a product with a wide range of water activities (i.e. different isothermal equilibrium moisture) for rH buffering. What you guys think?

[Fugu]

To check the effectiveness of said beads, I'd propose a slightly modified test, similar to the approach above done by backbone, but a bit more controlled:

If one of you has got e.g. 60% as well as 70% HF beads, then condition them for a couple of days in the same water-saturated atmosphere quite like backbone did, not using fluid water. Then place subsamples (edit: preferably same amount, but theoretically should not really matter) of those conditioned beads together with a hygrometer in separate plastic bags or tupper boxes or the like.

Then, after stabilization of the hygrometer readings, the resulting readouts should be +/- identical if the company's claim is not correct. If correct, and they indeed have different water activities, then one should end with at least a significantly higher reading for the 70%- as opposed to the 60%-bead setup.

[SloppyJ]

I'm down for that experiment. I have 65% on hand. The problem might be getting them to the same point of saturation. I'm not sure if you can over-saturate the beads. Either way, I'm always down for an experiment if someone else has a different rated HF bead. 

[Fugu]

1 minute ago, SloppyJ said:

I'm down for that experiment. I have 65% on hand. The problem might be getting them to the same point of saturation. I'm not sure if you can over-saturate the beads. Either way, I'm always down for an experiment if someone else has a different rated HF bead. 

If they have indeed the claimed buffering effect, I'd expect it should not be possible to strongly oversaturate them. If they are easily being oversaturated, then they won't be acting as supposed to. There might be a slight short-term effect, but there should be a clear activity plateau, where they are keeping rH more or less stable. And at least both should display clear differences in that. One might "aerate" them briefly (at normal, not too extreme "room moisture") after charging, before actually putting them in the test chambers, to be on the safe side. But that shouldn't have a pronounced effect.

[Jonesy22]

I was wondering this exact problem....i ordered 70% hf beads...thinkn I want to try and drop to at least 65%...glad I can just let them dry out a bit more...Thank you everyone