Dynamics of water vapor adsorption on humidity-indicating silica gel

Abstract

Well-defined CoCl2-containing silica gels were prepared by impregnation of the aqueous solution of the salt to silica hydrogel, drying and aging methods. Silica gels having 392-437 m2 g-1 surface area and 0.21-0.37 cm3 g-1 pore volume and having an average particle size of 3 mm were obtained. Aging in CoCl2 solutions decreased the surface area of silica gels from 540 cm2 g-1 to 392-430 m2 g-1 and pore volume from 0.27 to 0.21-0.23 cm3 g-1 for CoCl2 concentration smaller than 0.28 mol dm-3 in silica gel. Adsorbed water desorbed from the gels absorbing 1917-2555 J g-1 energy as determined by differential scanning calorimetry. The CoCl2-containing gels were successfully used in dynamic column experiments, with linear relation between velocities of inlet air and movement of blue to pink boundary. The colour change also makes the detection of the defects in column filling which causes air channelling