What type of products need desiccants?

Whenever we here at WiseSorbent® talk about desiccants, we usually bring up 4 main industries: Pharmaceutical, Diagnostic Reagents, Industrial, and Shipping Containers. But many people ask us, what type of products really need desiccants? The simple answer of course is anything that needs moisture protection or humidity control but it can of course get a lot deeper than that. Here is where we can dive into each industry individually and explain why desiccants and their properties are so integral to their packaging process.

In the pharmaceutical world, cleanliness, purity and control are key. Countless regulations ensure that medication and care are administered properly and that also extends to their packaging. For example, have you ever left a bottle of vitamins open (especially the gummy/gelatin variety) and find out that their texture has completely changed? This is due to the humidity found in your household areas: drawers, medicine cabinets, anywhere a cool dark place is, moisture gathers very quickly. Our desiccants can prevent such situations from occurring and also ensure that from factory to the end customer, they are safe and can be administered properly. If you think your cabinet has humidity going through it one can only imagine a hot factory buzzing throughout the day, a truckload of boxes filled with hundreds of identical boxes stacked on top of one another, its bound to be hot in these areas even in the coldest seasons. Thus, we ensure our desiccants are dispensed properly, sealed until being added to each package. In fact, even our cutting and dispensing machines have dry-box technology to make sure the atmospheric conditions are perfect during the entire process.

Speaking of factories and trucks, the industrial world needs desiccants for many reasons. Machinery operating all day in enclosed settings generate lots of heat, steam and can lead to many problems. Machinery operating non-stop can accumulate rust, general wear and tear from constant use and not work as well overall due to these conditions. Our large clay desiccants can be places throughout the factory floor to capture the moisture found during day to day operations and be one of many shields to keep machines and the products found within a factory going. We even carry dry breathers filled with silica gel (you may have seen it on our product page here) that can be attached to certain types of machines to filter the steam and humidity they give off directly. These large-style desiccant bags are also great for ground transportation, long term storage and other areas where things can get a bit muggy.

The storage world is notorious for a condition many people do not know about “container rain”. Take for instance a company that ships from Hong Kong to New York City. The port of Hong Kong is found near Southeast Asia which is very warm and humid all year long, while New York has a traditional 4 season climate. During transport, these temperature and weather patterns change and it can effect the containers greatly. Just like a glass freshly filled with ice, condensation occurs within the containers as the days turns to the night potentially ruining thousands of dollars of merchandise! Thanks to our high-strength calcium chloride-based desiccants we can eliminate this costly issue. Containers have various areas where we can hang them, we can stick them directly on top of packages found inside and we can even increase their humidity absorption rates by applying a filter to the ventilation areas found inside shipping containers too. In this way, a costly issue can be fixed with our technology and done more easily thanks to innovations in the way our packaging can better fit within any type of container, large, small, filled to the top or with space to spare.

Thus the question “of what product needs a desiccant?” is better asked “what type of desiccant is best to solve the problems I’m having?” for as long as moisture and humidity exists, desiccants will be around to put an end to the trouble they cause logistically. The packaging world is full of things that can improve it: recycling waste material, decreasing lead times, safety during the process, shipment tracking, and protecting products from damage. We here at WiseSorbent® are just another integral piece of the puzzle!