My World of Moisture

Tag: Humidity Page 1 of 2

Understanding Deliquescence

I recently posted on LinkedIn about a favourite subject of mine, deliquescence. You may think this is a bit weird to have enjoyment in such thing, but it simply fascinates me from all sorts of angles.

Deliquescence – What Is It?

To begin with, deliquescence is a perfectly natural process in some materials that adsorb moisture. There is a natural tendency for materials to adsorb and release moisture depending on the surrounding relative humidity (%RH). Some materials that have a high solubility in water adsorb moisture from the air and the molecules at the surface dissolve in this moisture. As more moisture is adsorbed, more of the material dissolves and this can continue until all the material turns into a liquid solution of the substance.

In Nature this phenomenon is exploited by some organisms for their survival. House mites will only thrive above a certain level of humidity and that is determined by deliquescence of a Na and K salt combination and the liquid draining into the mouth of the mite. The Atacama Desert, located in northern Chile, is accepted as being the driest and oldest part of our planet. Microbiologists have studied the bacteria and fungi from this region since the 1960’s. One area of scientific research has been studies on microorganisms in halite crustal deposits in evaporated lakes and salts within rocks where moisture can penetrate. Deliquescence of these salts is transient occurring when moist air from the Pacific Ocean is carried in land, but sufficient to provide a source of water for microorganisms.

Rock Salt – An Unexpected Discovery

So how can we use this phenomenon of deliquescence in practical ways? Let us take a look at what happens to rock salt. In this example a candle holder made from rock salt, but this is also applies to rock salt lamps. Compositional analysis of the well-known Pink Himalaya Rock Salt shows it to be about 38.6% sodium. A quick chemical calculation tells us that NaCl is made up of 39.3% sodium. The difference in rock salt from pure NaCl is less than 1% of other minerals.

A Christmas present of two rock candle holders were left sitting on a glass table. They both ended up surrounded by a clear liquid. It took several sheets of kitchen roll to mop up these little pools. Magically this liquid seemed to have appeared out of thin air! 

The truth is that it did come out the air, but not by magic. A saturated solution of NaCl is accepted by IUPAC as a standard for 75 %RH with which to calibrate humidity instruments. However, 75 %RH is also the humidity at which solid NaCl begins to adsorb moisture from the air.

Application Of Knowledge

The outside humidity was quite high, so a practical experiment was performed. I left the salt candle holder outside on a plastic chair for a few of days when there was no rain forecast. In the photo you can see the liquid produced from running off the candle holder. At the edges and within the liquid are white spots from the salt recrystallizing as water then evaporates. The same effect happens at salt lakes and hot salt springs that gives the salt deposits that the candle holder was probably made from in the first place. For this to occur with the salt candle holder the outside humidity would have to be above 75%.

The Relative Humidity of Deliquescence

Observing the deliquescence in the lead photo, would you not like to know at what humidity this was going to occur? One technique for obtaining this information is Dynamic Vapour Sorption (DVS). This technique is generally regarded as the ‘gold standard’ for moisture studies. Performed at constant temperature, a moisture sorption isotherm of your API undergoing deliquescence may appear as a material with little or no weight gain and then show an inflection at a particular relative humidity.

I was kindly granted permission to use the picture below of DVS graphs, known as moisture isotherms. Weight gain and loss in a material as the %RH increases and decreases are shown for a substance that undergoes deliquescence. There may be other interpretations, but my view is that between 70-80 %RH an inflection in the curve is caused by the substance starting to deliquesce as it adsorbs moisture. In the drying cycle of reducing %RH the substance returns to a solid state at 70-80 %RH. Note that the substance having been exposed to moisture prevents its released at lower %RH and the same starting %RH value is not achieved. One reason could be that a new crystalline state trapping in water molecules has been formed and this substance is displaying polymorphism.

Moisture Profiling

Relequa’s MP-1000 Moisture Profiling™ System can performed the task of identifying the deliquescence relative humidity at ambient temperature. The API in the lead photo was found upon testing by Moisture Profiling™ to have a Water Vapour Equilibrium Point (WVEP) of 29%. To avoid moisture uptake and prevent deliquescence in this case, the API should be handled in an atmosphere below 29 %RH. If we had tested the rock salt of the candle holder, we would find that the WVEP would be around 75%.

In less than an hour, the WVEP of an API can be determined using the MP-1000 Moisture Profiling™ System.

A Perception of Local Climate Change

My local climate has definitely changed. Not only does it seem that it has, which is just a feeling, but also supported by other people saying the same thing. There is in addition to this, evidence in the way plants are starting their growing season much earlier. Our rhubarb is already big enough to pick and we still have plenty in the freezer from last year because it grew so well. I thought maybe it was a good time to pull together the rainfall data I’ve collected over the years and have a look to see if the weather is truly wetter.

In February 2016 I wrote an article “Weather – Is it getting wetter?” and that followed on from an article I wrote on the extreme weather in the UK causing the worst floods “in living memory” in 2015. My rainfall data at that point did show an upward trend over 2010 to 2015 indicating that the weather could be getting wetter. A caveat I included in the article was that the timescale was very limited for monitoring climate change. Would my rainfall data now spanning 12 years tell the same story? Well, let’s find out.

I’ll start with a graph because people like graphs.

This graph shows the total from each year by adding up all the rain from individual days. When I wrote my article on rainfall at the beginning of 2016, you can see from the trend going from 2010 to 2015 why I thought we were getting more rain than usual. But then look what happens. Over the next three years, 2016 to 2018, we had lower rainfall and all about the same amount. In the past three years we see a wetter one in 2019, followed by decreasing amounts with 2021 coming down to 2016 to 2018 levels.

So now we have a bit of dilemma in that the data do not match our recent perception of the climate as getting wetter. Perhaps looking at the monthly rainfall might reveal something.

In each year the graph shows rainfall per month going from January to December. The pattern of rainfall just looks like “noise” with no obvious trend. One outstanding month is December 2015 when we had an awful lot of rain. This is probably what led me to writing my first post on rainfall in January 2016.

Still on the hunt for an explanation to our perception of a wetter climate, the next step to take is to drill down in the data to daily rainfall. Playing around with plotting in Excel I came up with the next graph.

The right hand column of coloured dots for each year is the day of the month, 1 to 30 for November. Each of these dots is linked by a line to the amount of rainfall on that day. By showing the data in this way it is easy to see on which days the rain was heaviest. Again, as we saw above for the yearly and monthly rainfall, there is nothing that jumps out at you as a pattern for change to a wetter climate.

Comparing the normally wetter winter months, November to February, a sequence of weather seems to be generally consistent. November and February are similar in having some dryish years and some very wet years. January is the driest of the winter months and clearly December is the month to expect days with really heavy rainfall. The very large amount of rain on one day in December 2018 was due to Storm Deidre and reported as follows on the Met Eireann website:

High pressure established itself over Scandinavia on the 12th and the airflow over Ireland backed to south or southeast up to the 15th. The bulk of the rain during this period fell in the South. On the 15th, Storm Deirdre deepened rapidly as it moved across the country giving widespread heavy rain and very strong winds

A similarly heavy day’s rain you can see in December 2013 was another winter storm, but in this case, unnamed as this was before the practice of naming storms.

Having gone through this analysis of my local rainfall data I have eliminated an increase in rainfall as a reason for our perception of a wetter climate. I want to emphasise here the word “local” because clearly other parts of Ireland and the British Isles generally have seen record amounts of rainfall leading to flooding in places where people cannot remember doing so in “living memory”.

Two observations from recent years, particularly 2021, have directed my thinking about this perception of a wetter climate. From August to the end of that year any heavy and persistent rain caused our lawn to partially flood.  Despite us taking measures to reduce the amount of run-off rain onto the lawn, parts were still flooding. Speaking with somebody who had spent Christmas 2021 with his mother in England, said he had also seen flooding on his mother’s lawn that he could not remember happing before.

The second observation is that the relative humidity readings (%RH) from our weather station seemed to remain high all year, including over the summer. These readings are not recorded for reasons I’ll not go into here, but it is to do with a technical matter around Davis weather stations and the difficulty of interpreting historical humidity data..

My hypothesis based on these observations is that persistent high humidity has reduced evaporation of water from the soil. To understand the link between %RH and evaporation, have a read of the technical section of my eBook “A Wetter Look At Climate Change” and particularly the chapter in which I talk about not being able to dry your clothes on a damp day.

If the amount of water evaporating from the soil is reduced, then the water table remains higher than normal. So, after some very heavy showers or persistent heavy rain over a couple of hours, the water table is quickly topped up to the level of the soil surface. Today, the 9th March, is one of those days. Met Eireann has issued a yellow status wind and rain warning from earlier this morning and our lawn is flooding. As are parts of a gravel path and I cannot get to my car without paddling through a large puddle!

The overall impact of having continuous high humidity, seeing parts of the ground flooding and slow to dry, has, I think, led to our perception of a wetter local climate. No doubt, and Nature is showing us, the Earth’s climate is warmer and that will in itself lead to more moisture in the air. Consequences of this will manifest themselves in many different ways.

I write about how humidity and moisture effects everything around us. If you would like to hear more on the impact of moisture, various topics on moisture and humidity are discussed in my eBook “A Wetter Look At Climate Change”.

The story of the three little tablets

We all like a story with a feel good ending.

Here is the story of the three little tablets and the Big Bad Humidity.

There once were three little tablets that had just graduated from R&D with their DSC, TGA and DVS, ready to start their journey out into the big wide world. One of the little tablets even graduated from R&D with honours in high amorphous content. In the beginning they were well made up, and in their API hearts, very happy with their polymorphic state.

The first little tablet built its home in the wrong season of the year. To make matters worse, climate change made it almost impossible to find any part of the year to be safe. Along came Big Bad Humidity and said “I will adsorb, and adsorb, and adsorb moisture on to you little tablet”. Before long, the first little tablet’s API heart was broken into pieces and the R&D doctor diagnosed chronic hydrolysis. That was the end of life on the shelf for the first little tablet.

The second little tablet built its home more soundly and had the wisdom to wear a moisture barrier film coat. But things change, as they often do, and the second little table changed its coat for a new TiO2-free coat. Along came Big Bad Humidity and said “I will adsorb, and adsorb, and adsorb moisture on to you little tablet”. Poor second little tablet was soon very alone because nobody wanted a tablet that had become all squidgy inside. Second little tablet had to be recalled back to where it was born, and the R&D doctor was sacked.

The third little tablet built its home in a different way. Clever third little tablet monitored what was happening with Big Bad Humidity. Third little tablet went to a Relequa® Moisture Profiling™ clinic and learned where Big Bad Humidity was weak. Along came Big Bad Humidity and said “I will adsorb, and adsorb, and adsorb moisture on to you little tablet”. But third little tablet simply ignored Big Bad Humidity and lived happily ever after in humidity equilibrium to the end of its good shelf life.

And the moral of the story is?

Be in control of moisture at all times.

Relequa® Moisture Profiling™.

I write about how humidity and moisture effects everything around us. If you would like to hear more on the impact of moisture, various topics on moisture and humidity are discussed in my eBook “A Wetter Look At Climate Change”.

The Humidistat

I ended 2021 by sharing a climate change article on LinkedIn. This article concluded with a call to action to become part of the global warming solution and not just whinge about the problem. Now I’m starting 2022 with my own article concerning climate change and what we are doing at home to be part of the solution in our own little way. As events unfolded, and during a discussion with a salesperson, the title for this article “The Humidistat” occurred to me.

Solar panels for us?

Our story begins with one of those emails that are usually ignored. It said that the Irish Government grants for installing solar panels were coming to an end soon. Maybe a good marketing ploy by Active8 Solar Energies, but it was something that had crossed the mind several times over the past few years. After checking Active8 out we booked a home visit to see if our old bungalow was even suitable for solar panels. Fair play to the person taking the call at Active8 as they said the SEAI grant was due to end but had been extended. So, that meant the time pressure was off and we need not rush into something without due consideration.

A good thing about dealing with electricity suppliers online these days is that you can get summaries of your usage. By the time Jerry Cropley the Active8 salesperson turned up at the front door with mask on, I was armed with my annual kWp, the number of panels needed and the cost per panel. Jerry, who was very knowledgeable and helpful answering our solar energy questions, assessed our bungalow to be suitably located (not overshadowed), very good with its south facing, low (30%) pitched roof and type of tiles. The cost was calculated and came in much lower than I’d thought. I was starting to feel good about our potential part in a climate change solution. Signatures added on an electronic notebook and all that was then required was a BER (Building Energy Rating) certification that was inclusive in the cost.

Cavity wall insulation

From many years of involvement in projects, one of the cost-saving measures we watch out for are things that have a tendency to grow ‘arms and legs’ – ramping up the cost. Well, we failed the BER! Of the options presented to us for upping our rating, cavity wall insulation seemed the best. Again, something that we had considered in the past to save energy. At what cost though?

Luckily, we have a local company, Dungarvan Insulation, that does a range of options for insulation. A quick call led to Dave O’Connor coming round in a couple of days, who measured the walls, asked a few questions about the inside of the walls, dry lining was one. Dungarvan Insulation make their own thermobeads for filling the wall cavity, something that appealed to me in a company having that expert knowledge. Raw material for the thermobeads arrives in Dungarvan as a dense powder then steam is used to swell the material to form expanded beads.

Humidity and extractor fans

Dave and I had a great wee chat about humidity. We talked about movement of air in rooms and through buildings. Also, the various options that are offered as solutions to where moisture builds up. Care has to taken that when thinking about insulation options you don’t seal off ventilation causing humidity to build up. Our conversation led into removing high humidity using through-the-wall extractor fans. Moving our chat onto “smart” options, home extractor fans can have humidity control built-in. When the %RH reaches a specified humidity, the fan automatically switches on or off, saving energy from running when not needed. To control this electronically the extractor fan must have a microchip called “The Humidistat”.

After pivoting into My World of Moisture with Dave, back to the all important question: what is the cost?  The answer is surprisingly reasonable. About the cost of an international holiday with a long haul flight. In the current circumstances particularly, we are going nowhere and happy to forego a holiday abroad and save contributing to burning aviation fuel. This was on 20th Dec and now it’s the 10th of January and Mark arrived in a large lorry filled with 80-100 m3 of thermobeads at 8am and finished at noon. Pretty good service I’d say.

Humidistats

Now we’ve reached a good point to suspend my solar panel story until they are installed. Let’s explore The Humidistat. First what does it look like? In the picture I’ve labelled the key parts of a humidistat microchip. This one is made by Honeywell, one of many suppliers of humidistats and they come in various shapes and sizes. To give you some perspective, the one in the picture is about 5mm x 4mm x 2mm. They can be bought up to 1000 chips on a tape. A machine for pick-and place can lift the humidistats from a tape and place them on printed circuits in large numbers, or you can pick off the humidistats yourself and solder the chip by its pins to the copper lines on a printed circuit.

The pins which are numbered 1-8, each can have a function or just used for supporting the mounting. For instance, the one in the picture has Pin 7 designated as “NC” (not for external connection). Voltage in and out is “Pinouts” 1 and 2 in the picture, whereas 5 and 6 are the high and low humidity outputs. Adjustors on an extractor fan fitted with a humidistat allow you to set the humidity range, for example, 60 %RH to 80 %RH. The electronics controlling the switch for the fan reads the output from the humidistat and turns it on at 80 %RH and then off at 60 %RH.

Concerning condensation

The type of humidistat shown in the picture has a hydrophobic (water hating) filter, that you can see in the top of the chip and makes it condensation-resistant. Underneath the filter is a humidity sensor that responds according to the amount of moisture in the air. Water condensing on the sensor will interfere with its moisture measurement and the filter stops this happening in areas of very high humidity, as in a bathroom or shower room.

Earth, a gigantic humidistat

Our planet could be thought of as a gigantic humidistat with a whole load of complex inputs and outputs that has kept the climate fairly steady over thousands of years since the last ice age. We are now seeing a change in that balance of the climate through what we think is a result of hundreds of years of human activity and in particular the industrial revolution. Global warming is heating up the atmosphere and driving more moisture into the air causing a change in our climate, that’s a fact.

I explain the relationship between temperature and humidity in my eBook “A Wetter Look At Climate Change” and talk about the source of extreme weather. Unfortunately for us when it comes to our global humidistat, unlike the microchip, there is no adjuster control for us to set the humidity!

Simply bananas

To finish on a lighter and more positive note. One of our local supermarkets has made a commitment to sustainability and reducing plastic packing. Bananas packed in plastic bags are no longer being put on the shelves. Instead, here’s a picture of the new presentation of their bananas. This appeals to my quirky sense of humour, I’m not going to explain why, just leave it for you to enjoy.

I write about how humidity and moisture effects everything around us. If you would like to hear more on the impact of moisture, various topics on moisture and humidity are discussed in my eBook “A Wetter Look At Climate Change”.

A Question of Moisture and Space

On October 4th somebody from my past got in touch through LinkedIn. We used to work at Delta Biotechnology in Nottingham, didn’t really know each other that well and not had any contact since about 1990. After exchanging messages, a few weeks later I asked my newly reintroduced contact if there was any topic on moisture he would like to see written as an article. That has led me to write this today because something that is interesting for one person is probably relevant and worth writing about for other people.

Before I get started on the topic, let me introduce Michael Geisow, a protein chemist who has reinvented himself as an author. Michael’s first novel is a modern psychological drama around social networking and artificial intelligence: a data expert, a healthcare evangelist, a dodgy psychologist and others including the devious Tuula Pippi. Available on Amazon.

The first thing Michael asked about was condensation on the outside of double glazed windows but dry inside. An easy one really and it’s all about temperature. Condensation like this occurs when high humidity air immediately above the glass surface is cooled taking the relative humidity to 100%. At this point water vapour in the air turns to liquid and forms droplets on the glass. Warmer air around the inner glass pane of the double glazing keeps the moisture in the air as a gas.

Michael’s second question on condensation is trickier. He described outside balustrade panels only having condensation on one side even though both sides are exposed to the same air conditions. I can see his scientific brain at work on this question. Something does not add up! No easy answer this time without further investigation. One unlikely possibility is that one side of the panels is warmer for some reason, but in the open air, natural circulation should be redistributing the temperature. Balustrade panels are made with reinforced glass for safety reasons. Perhaps one side of the glass is coated preventing water droplets forming. Even though a very thin layer of moisture will be present on the coated side, from casual observation, condensation on the other side will be all that is seen. A case where more information is needed to solve this one.

A day later after the condensation questions arrived, a question from Michael about looking for moisture on other planets. I’m not quite sure what Michael had in mind, but this gives me an opportunity to talk about life on other planets and their moons.

Starting in Autumn 2020 I signed up for the Open University course S283 Planetary science and the search for life. The course was split into two parts, one on our Solar System and the other on Astrobiology. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience even when having to attend online tutorials and complete assignments that were continuously assessed.

Moisture is present in vast quantities throughout our Solar System. Space scientists and astrobiologists generally work from what we understand about our Earth. Life in the form of microorganisms is found in the most extreme conditions on Earth. Logically we use our planet as a model system to look for life on other planets and moons in our Solar System. One of the driest places on Earth is the Atacama Desert in Chile.

Microbiologists have studied the bacteria and fungi from this region since the 1960’s. But in 2003, NASA published a paper describing Atacama as a model for Mars. That kicked off intense interest in engineering and scientific activity to mimic how to perform tests on the Martian terrain. Let’s start with “Is there water on Mars?” Pictures from the Mars missions compared to geographical features on Earth, indicate strongly that liquid water once flowed on the surface of Mars. Features that look just like riverbeds and erosion by water. We know for sure that water in the form of ice sits at the North and South poles of Mars. Also, there may be water deep underground. Future missions are planned to provide some answers.

As far As far as we know, water is a prerequisite for life. On Earth no life exists that does not rely on water. Back to the arid Atacama Desert. Engineers and scientists have designed machines and testing techniques to detect the presence of microbes in this desolate part of our world. The technology will be placed on board Mars missions and the data from the tests will be beamed back to Earth.

Related to this is a fact that has been known for many years. Microbes do not grow when the relative humidity of the air gets below 60%. In my eBook A Wetter Look At Climate Change and the section related to food, there is a table that shows the lowest %RH for the organisms is 61%. Recent studies on the microbes from Atacama and other arid parts of our planet have shown that there appears to be an absolute limit of 60.5 %RH for growth. For example, a paper published in 2014 with the title: Multiplication of microbes below 0.690 water activity: implications for terrestrial and extraterrestrial life and written as an international collaboration. One of the groups is the Institute for Global Food Security, School of Biological Sciences, Queen’s University Belfast and another is the UK Centre for Astrobiology, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh. So, you can see how things are interrelated. The other co-authors come from NASA, Germany, The Netherlands Italy and France. By the way, you have to multiply the “water activity” in the title of the paper by 100 to get the %RH for growth.

Atacama gets less than 2mm annual rain and has an average %RH of 10, classifying this desert as the driest place on Earth. Fog drifting in from the coast and around the coastal range of mountains into the desert provides microbes with the necessary moisture to keep them alive. These highly specialised organisms live in rocks containing salt. The salt in the rocks attracts moisture that is scavenged by the microbes. The interaction between salt and moisture is also a section in my eBook.

I’ll finish this article with one of my ‘mad’ ideas! On board a future exploratory mission to Mars a humidifier-dehumidifier should be set up to adjust the %RH around soil samples. Based on what we know from Earth, exposing soil to above 60%RH should encourage any viable microbes to grow. A range of temperatures and relative humidity would be needed to discover the growth requirements of these organisms. Soil samples will need to be taken from depths below the Martian surface as Solar radiation has most likely destroyed any past living entity on the surface.  Rock is a good shield against penetrating radiation.

Why is this simple idea ‘mad’? There are protocols in place for limiting risk of Why is this simple idea ‘mad’? There are protocols in place for limiting risk of contamination of extra-terrestrial bodies from space missions known as COSPAR which is a committee of scientists (Committee on Space Research). In Category IV, the second most stringent, covers a mission for “studying chemical evolution and/or origin of life, or for which scientific opinion provides a significant chance of contamination that could jeopardize a future biological experiment”. Perhaps transporting water, even though sterile, and encouraging growth of microbes is against the protocol.

The idea is so simple that it must have been thought about, yes?

I write about how humidity and moisture effects everything around us. If you would like to hear more on the impact of moisture, various topics on moisture and humidity are discussed in my eBook “A Wetter Look At Climate Change”.

Natural Fibre Composites

After a long gap I am returning to my blog. During last lockdown I decided to learn a new skill and gave myself a 30 day challenge to touch type. My blog is a great opportunity to practice my typing without looking at the keyboard. The topic I have chosen is another thing stumbled upon when researching moisture that popped up when searching by Google on a completely different subject.  This was a completely new topic for me and something I’d not come across before. As with some other topics I have written about, some new terminology cropped up. So, let’s have brief venture into Natural Fibre Composites (NFCs) and of course my take on these materials and their relationship with moisture.

NFCs

NFCs, what are they? Apart from the moisture aspect, what caught my attention in NFCs was using naturally sourced fibre materials to replace plastics such a nylon, and polyester. Some of the natural source I’d heard of; flax (cotton of course), jute and hemp, others new to me, kenaf and ramie and some more exotic tropical plants, acrea palm and rux. Materials that are natural with a potential for reducing the amount plastic waste in the environment has to be investigated. From the amount research literature on NFCs I’ve come across since these materials are being taken very seriously. As vegetable matter that is already grown in vast quantities, converting this to NFCs as substitutes for plastics has to be attractive. But it’s never that simple is it?

Biodegradable

A tantalizing prospect is that as vegetable derived material it is completely biodegradable and as waste much better for environment helping to reduce disposal of plastics and the consequential  microplastics.

Here’s the rub, vegetable material naturally interacts with moisture as part of Nature’s recycling processes. Moisture weakens the strength of the fibres so to counteract this the fibres have to be further processed to prevent moisture uptake. Various approaches for doing this are being researched on different types of vegetable fibre resulting in ‘composites’, hence the name NFCs.

“Retting”, and the difference between green and mechanical retting.

Green retting is the traditional way of preparing flax and other plant fibres.

The plants are laid out after cropping directly in the field. Natural processes that require moisture, break down the soft plant tissue and the fibrous stem material is harvested. A skilled farmer would harvest just at the right time where the soft tissue is broken down just enough to allow its separation from plant fibre and before the fibre itself degrades. Plant fibre prepared in this way is called “bast” and different plants produce bast with varying properties. Some more suited to weaving into everyday clothes others for making heavy duty materials. Mechanical retting separates bark, soft tissue, fibres and woody core that have a range of uses. However, lacking the natural microbial breakdown activity the bast fibre obtained in mechanical retting is a crude product and needs further treatment such as water retting to obtain a higher grade plant fibre.

Combined green and mechanical retting

In a recently published paper the authors describe a combined green and mechanical retting process. Hemp plants are left standing in the field, “stand-retting”, and natural microbial breakdown is allow continue for a period.

Microorganisms need moisture and, although the hemp is starting to dry at this stage, the plant material picks up moisture from the atmosphere. The authors describe moisture uptake occurring by the “need” to reach an “equilibrium moisture content between the plants and the atmosphere”. This type of moisture interaction is humidity driven and explained in the Technical section of my eBook. After 4 months “stand-retting”, the crop was harvested using a mechanical retting machine. “Stand-retting” had made the separation of the plant fibres more efficient for mechanical retting.

Researchers are looking at how to expand the uses for the vast amount of bast fibre currently produced worldwide. Some of the focus is on how to treat the fibres to prevent of lessen the fibres ability for moisture uptake. A complete substitution for plastic would be ideal. Of course, there is always a price to pay and the treatments, particularly the chemical ones, will have to be balanced against the potential waste generated at industrial scale. In the immediate future most likely the NFCs will be a combination of plant fibre and plastic, at least, this reduces plastic use.

Moisture and Water

Time to get on my Irish Hobby horse (possibly the source of the “to get on your hobby horse” expression for incessantly talking or complaining about something).  Published scientific papers on NFCs that include studies on the impact of water on the properties of the fibres use the term moisture. The actual standard test, named ASTM D570, describes immersion of a material in liquid water and the test results in a water-absorption value. In my understanding, “moisture” is defined as water vapour in the air. Authors of some of the published papers refer in their text to moisture absorption or moisture uptake. Some even use the terms “water” and “moisture” interchangeably as though there was no difference. A trivial point you may think, but not to me…..I find it just as annoying when people who should know better use the words bacteria and virus as if there is no difference, but that’s another story.

The subtle bit here is once the NFCs have absorbed water, the test to give the water-absorption value is a test for moisture. By heating a sample of the material, water is driven from the surface as moisture when it enters the air around the sample. The assumption is that all of the water absorbed from the liquid state is released as moisture. No water should remain the sample therefore all the moisture released equals the amount water that was in the sample. There you go, easy!

I write about how humidity and moisture effects everything around us. If you would like to hear more on the impact of moisture, various topics on moisture and humidity are discussed in my eBook “A Wetter Look At Climate Change”.

Candle in the Moisture

I always finish at the end of my blog posts with the words “Welcome to my world of moisture”. A simple thing happened in my world of moisture that would have most people guessing “what’s gone on here?” or maybe “who’s done this?” That thing was a pool of clear liquid around a candle holder, shown in the picture, which was sitting on a glass table. Where had this liquid come from? Who had split water or something on the table? Nothing had been split. The candle holder had been left untouched for weeks. Magically this liquid had appeared out of thin air! A mystical apparition materialising from the ether? Help, somebody call a medium. A “sign from above” warning of looming storms and flooding. Or maybe we can find an answer from science…..

World’s first moisture specific seminar?

“The impact of moisture on yield & quality”

This could be the first ever moisture seminar that is not focussed on a particular analysis technique or application area.

I’m giving two talks!

A brief introduction to relative humidity explaining some of the terms and concepts for an understanding of how humidity works.

The story of the progress made at key points in our understanding of the way materials interact with moisture. This leading to my development of Relequa’s Moisture Profiling.

To view the moisture seminar flyer click on MORE

The Frizzing Humidity

Here’s a problem I do not lose any sleep over, Frizzy Hair! So why am I talking about it? Humidity of course. Somebody tweeted something like “Is this the most amazing product for frizzy hair in high humidity……”  I actually thought it was a joke! Some sort of pretend science marketing ploy. Curiosity got to me and I looked up the “product”, which was not an actual product, but an ingredient with a name abbreviated to OFPMA.……..

Powdery Mildew – An Experiment in its Control

I am getting a bit worried about the current weather. Staying with a gardening theme and fungi, we are having the type of weather that these microbes love. Days of showers and not enough sunshine to dry the ground. On top of that, the night time temperatures are sitting around about 11 to 13 centigrade. Very mild, damp and favourable for certain types of fungi. In my last post on this blog I talked about the fungi responsible for “damping off” by attacking young plants. This time my focus is on another troublesome fungi that attacks both mature and young plants, the dreaded “Mildew”.……..

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