Brain Storm: Drying "cabinet" for sensitized carbon tissues...

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Here's a food dehydrator.
http://www.harvestessentials.com/wes...75-0201-w.html

[greybeard]

I don't know if anyone has ever collected any data to see if there is a "sweet spot" for moisture content of a sensitized tissue.

This is what I was referring to by "conditioning"; some specified moisture content may not be particularly sweet, but if it affects the chemistry, it would be nice to have it the same every time. "Fully" dehydrating (silica gel, molecular sieve, etc.) for storage and then conditioning to a predetermined moisture content (calcium nitrate slush, etc.) might be a worthwhile technic. I haven't worked with carbon tissue, but I understand that it is plasticized with sucrose, which would seem to be most effective if not completely dry.

Regarding refrigerators, I was thinking of the dorm-room size, or maybe one of the under-the-bar refrigerators.

[gmikol]

^^^ Exactly.

But since you're going to condition the tissues, might as well figure out what the optimum moisture content is.

--Greg

[holmburgers]

Also, assuming you have "completely" dehydrated a tissue, how long would it take to acclimate to the ambient moisture? Couple minutes, an hour or two, ...?

Did I catch a pun in there... sweet spot and sucrose?

[gmikol]

Also, assuming you have "completely" dehydrated a tissue, how long would it take to acclimate to the ambient moisture? Couple minutes, an hour or two, ...?

I would guess it would be on the order of hours. Might depend on how hygroscopic your additives are. If you had an analytical balance, you could completely dry the tissue, weigh it dry, and then monitor it's weight over time and see for yourself. Balance would probably need to be sub-milligram accurate.

This is just conjecture on my part, but I suspect it would be quicker to drive a tissue with excess moisture to equilibrium than a completely dry tissue to the same equilibrium point. Since heat could be used with a damp tissue to drive water from the tissue, but I'm not sure that a warm environment could be used to drive moisture into the tissue.

Did I catch a pun in there... sweet spot and sucrose?

NO...I only use glycerin, no sugar.

--Greg