Desiccants, Tested Side By Side [Hackaday]

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We’re so used to seeing a little sachet of desiccant drop out of a package when we open it, that we seldom consider these essential substances. But anyone who spends a while around 3D printing soon finds the need for drying their filament, and knowing a bit about the subject becomes of interest. It’s refreshing then to see [Big Clive] do a side-by-side test of a range of commonly available desiccants. Of silica gel, bentonite, easy-cook rice, zeolite, or felight, which is the best? He subjects them to exactly the same conditions over a couple of months, and weighs them to measure their efficiency in absorbing water.

The results are hardly surprising, in that silica gel wins by a country mile. Perhaps the interesting part comes in exploding the rice myth; while the rice does have some desiccant properties, it’s in fact not the best of the bunch despite being the folk remedy for an immersed mobile phone.

Meanwhile, this isn’t the first time we’ve looked at desiccants, in the past we’ve featured activated alumina.