[mds33200]

Hi, I was wondering if silica beads are still effective (as a moisture absorber) if they are crushed?

Here is why I want to crush the beads: at work we have an air compressor that we hook up to an air tank, we use it to clean electronic components. We have an air filter installed to filter particles from the tank, then we also have a desiccant filter to remove vapor from the air hose. The desiccant filter is packed with the silica beads, they are dark purple. Once they turn pink the beads have to be replaced. Just to give a description on what the desiccant filter looks like, it has a hollow filter that slides into the clear plastic housing, and the beads surround the outside of the filter (the beads go between the clear plastic housing and the outside of the filter).

I purchased some silica beads at my local hardware store and went to replace the beads that were in the desiccant filter (because the beads I have installed turned pink already), and the beads I purchased are to large in size to fit between the clear housing and the inner filter. They only sell one size silica beads, and they are just a bit to large. If I crushed them they would surely fit but I don’t know if they would still be effective. Any info would be appreciated!
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[Stepan]

Yes, you can crash them and this does not affect the water adsorption.  This is not easy - they are hard and you loose a lot of adsorbent as dust.

You can also regenerate spent silica gel if you have a hotplate, pan and fume hood. Note: when you regenerate Silica Gel, it releases all smelly vapours (including toxic), which it previously adsorbed, plus some acids which were trapped in beads during manufacturing. Work under fume hood. Do not do it at home!!! it does smell very strongly.

Extract silica gel from the trap, and place it in a wide pan. Silica gel layer should be 1/2 inch or less. Heat it gently at 130-150 C for 1-3 hours. It will restore the original color. If it turned black - the temperature was too high and it will not work anymore. You can regenerate silica gel 3-4 times.

[mds33200]

Thanks for the info! I heard about regenerating silica beads, thanks for clarifying the process.