Properties
Silica gel's high surface area (around 800 m2/g) allows it to adsorb water readily, making it useful as a desiccant (drying agent). Once saturated with water, the gel can be regenerated by heating it to 120 °C (250 °F) for two hours. Some types of silica gel will "pop" when exposed to enough water. This is caused by breakage of the silica spheres when contacting the water.
Silica gel is often described as "absorbing" moisture, which may be appropriate when the gel's microscopic structure is ignored, as in silica gel packs or other products. However, as material silica gel removes moisture by adsorption onto the surface of its numerous pores rather than by absorption into the bulk of the gel.
Read more about this topic: Silica Gel
Famous quotes containing the word properties:
“A drop of water has the properties of the sea, but cannot exhibit a storm. There is beauty of a concert, as well as of a flute; strength of a host, as well as of a hero.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they choose and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society: to limit the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)