Silica gel desiccant showdown - normal versus crystal cat litter

I've come across various articles claiming that silica gel based cat litter can be used as a moisture absorber, so I decided to test that and see how well it actually worked.

The cat litter I used was Bob Martin Felight cat litter, which I think is the silica gel based version.

Most notable difference was the lightness of the cat litter crystals. For a specific volume the cat litter is significantly lighter than the solid beads. I think it's optimised to be porous.

This also keeps the channel independent of YouTube's algorithm quirks, allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.

#ElectronicsCreators

[slaur]

The difference is actually in the pore size of the silica gel. The type that is meant to absorb moisture has smaller pores (Wikipedia says about 2.5 nm), while the liquid absorbent type has pores of 4.5 - 7.0 nm.

[NiddNetworks]

Only Clive answers the burning questions that I didn't want to know - and still makes an entertaining, interesting and watchable video. How many 8K cameras does he use? How many staff? How many TB or PB of storage does he have to store the raw footage? How many massively powerful editing workstations? NONE. It's just Clive, a laptop, a phone, and a mic.... oh and his hand-built studio lights! Honestly, on the "watchability" scale, Clive's videos BEAT a lot of the more elaborate setups for me. <3 Clive. You are high on the list of "people to meet / have coffe with before I die"!! Thank you for everything you do!

[TechGorilla]

@2:30 - "90 grams which is 90 ml." Since I started using borosilicate beakers in my kitchen for cooking - like chemistry beakers and such - it dawned on me that I now, as I am much older, wish we had have been taught the metric system. Weighing/measuring quantities is far more intuitive with the metric system.

[TechGorilla]

I'm in the middle of a 2 hours Border Control show and I stop everything for a Clive video. One of the few creators left that I am actually invested in and who generally makes me feel like my watching and interacting means something to him. Never change, Clive.

[curtishoffmann]

BigClive isn't droll, he just has a dry humor.

[tammyhollandaise]

Neat! I did some experiments in our prototyping lab with two quart jars of cat litter. When I put the fresh, out of the bag crystals in a sealed box, the humidity climbed by more than 20%; if you're going to dry anything, you've got to cook your crystals.

[conto]

I would love more videos like this, commercial vs "DIY" solutions.

[sleeptyper]

I use the crystal cat litter in my 3D filament storage box and i have been quite happy with it. It dries very well in a tabletop oven. It's in a box that has stainless steel mesh glued to cover the air holes, because that type of silica sheds off some amounts of sand that can be nasty to handle. For the drying, i transfer it to an aluminium food container that you get when you buy prepared food. A hygrometer on the storage lid tells me when it's time to dry all the desiccants - i also reuse the bead bags i get with every filament roll.

[zebrasprite]

My cat watched this with great interest.
Mushroom the cat is now a Big Clive fan, I do believe.

[jeremyboyce]

Clive: asking all of the hard-hitting scientific questions, and offering up his own blend of humor along the way!

[petermoore]

It might be worth comparing the price per gramme of water absorbed as well.

[bertjesklotepino]

i used the cat litter silica gel for a very different purpose.
first i used a coffee grinder to grind it to dust.
And then i used it to cover up flowers.
White roses.
The flower piece of my father's funeral.
And you know what happened?

It dried perfectly.
The leaves of the flowers dried without much change of color.

The only thing is that you have to be careful with that dust. You do not want to breath any of it in.
Plus, the flower has to be covered all the way, including in between the leaves of the flower.

But, the result is very nice.
If you make sure you dry it out completely, you can put such a piece of art in clear epoxy and it will last for ever.

Just an idea for the cat litter stuff.

[Multi-Skill-Bill]

That is such useful information!!
I have kept those little packets for years, they are so useful.
I take a plastic bottle of various sizes, drill some holes in it and fill it with the little packets.
I have them in my gun safe, tool boxes, anywhere moisture can corrode something of value.
To date, this method has worked flawlessly for me!
Great video!

[shuypnini]

it will be interesting to run the experiment again with the cat litter crushed to a smaller crystals.

it will allow to fit more, and increase the surface area.

[SigEpBlue]

Interesting results, Clive. FWIW, I save most of the silica gel packets I come across, usually in medication bottles, in (relatively) airtight glass jars. After gentle baking, I then use them to keep my collection of old carbon composition resistors as dry as possible, also in glass jars. It's been working wonderfully for many years.

[twocvbloke]

I remember our trying that silica cat litter, and the cats at the time used it once and refused to use it again owing to the noise it made as they peed on it, proper rice krispies type sounds... :P

[keithjurena]

Silica gel is technically a surface effect so it is adsorption, not absorption. I was corrected by a professor decades ago on this very subject.
Larger pore size results in less surface area per unit mass or volume.
Synthetic zeolite molecular sieves are rated in pore size in Angstroms.

[inversek]

Thank you, you earned a new subscriber here. Short video, very effective, high information density, straight to the point. Exactly what I was looking for, without added fluff.

[KeanM]

I suspect the crystal cat litter is optimized for capturing liquid (urine) rather than extracting moisture from the air.
Maybe to compare this take 100g of each and pour water over them (or submerse in a container of water), then drain the excess water with a sieve, and measure the final weights.

[ralphj]

I love the way a KatKin cat food ad precedes the Clive vid. I suspect that Gourmet cats prefer real silica gel, over to Clive for that test (with proper fluids).