[synthnick]

hi
I would like to ask if there is a way to dry a used drying agent like sodium sulfate
thank you

[Arkcon]

There are sometimes procedures for drying a used drying agent.  Usually that's reserved for an expensive synthetic one made of polymer beads or something like that.  If the solid was just used in a drying tube, the recipe may call for gentle or moderate heating, either with or without forced air or vacuum.  Sorry I can't be more specific, but it depends on the solid, and I don't know all the recipes, you will have to Google each.  However, if the solid was used to dry an organic liquid, you may be called on to recrystallize first to remove impurities -- not really worthwhile for something as common as sodium sulfate.

[fledarmus]

It depends on what kind of equipment you have. Back when we actually used drying tubes filled with indicator Drierite (instead of inert gas blankets), we would store the tubes in a vacuum oven with all the rest of our oven dried glassware. It usually took about a day to get all the color back.

Sodium sulfate really isn't worth the effort to dry. And as Arkcon says, if you're using the drying agents to dry liquids instead of gases, you have to deal with contamination as well, which makes very few drying agents worth the effort to reuse.

[synthnick]

thank you both!