shilala MHbeads

[Zoomschwortz]

I received 1 pound of Scotts MHbeads this past Monday (thanks Scott) for testing. The beads were in several cigar sized mesh bags. A couple bags had broken open during shipping but were still contained in a zip lock baggie.

The broken bags worked out very well since I was able to pour them into the bottom of a plastic lined cigar box and also afforded me a chance to look at these beads.

First thing that hit me was the size of these beads, they are tiny, maybe .020" diameter or nearly 3 times the thickness of a human hair.

The next thing that caught my eye was the warning, do not add water directly to the beads, they will absorb water so fast that they will create enough heat to melt the mesh bags. This heat is not a chemical reaction. The heat as I am told is caused by the friction of the water being sucked into the beads at a very high rate.

Knowing that the beads were on the way, I prepared my 104 quart cooler with a couple cedar cigar boxes and a hygrometer. The cooler was at a steady 55% RH for a few days before the beads arrived.

I wanted to see where the beads were at before adding water so I put them in the cooler and found that an hour later the cooler was down to 50% RH. It stayed at 50% for the next couple hours until I added water.

Keep in mind that with the exception of the couple cedar boxes, the cooler is empty and not getting any other help in controling the RH.

I then added an 8" plastic dish with distilled water to the cooler, (you would not believe the loud sucking sound as the beads took in the water, just kidding) and found that the RH the next morning (4:15 AM) was 67%. The RH went up 17% in the 104 quart cooler in less than 8 hours.

That evening the RH was 72% so I pulled the dish out. By 4:15 AM the next morning the RH was 69% and when I got home at 4:30 PM the RH was 65%.

At 9:00 PM last night the RH was still a steady 65% when I went to bed so I added the dish of water one more time to see what would happen.

This morning at 4:15 AM, the RH was 72% so I removed the dish of water.

I have a meeting after work tonight so I won't be home until 9 PM or later. Depending on how tired I am when I get home, I will add my boxes of cigars tonight or at the latest tomorrow night and then we will see how these work in the real world.

So far I am impressed with how quickly these beads will change the RH in a cooler of open space. We will see how they do when most of the space is filled up with cigars. I will be supprised if the recovery time on a cooler full of cigars is not even faster.

The next challenge for the beads will come when I add a cab of RP Olde World Reserve when they get here. I look forward to seeing how well the beads will maintain RH when a new cab with lots of cedar is added after their 3-7 day trip.

Thanks again Scott!

Ken

[MithShrike]

I'll be watching this one.

[tchariya]

We talk lots about the absorption qualities of MH/RH beads..but no one ever talks about the RH absorption qualities of the leaf itself...in and out of cello. I would suspect that it would take a bit more time for the environment to even itself out once you introduce cigars into the equation. If anything, the beads will need to be hydrated back to life to feed the 'dryer' cigars.

Just throwing random thoughts out there.

Than

[Zoomschwortz]

Originally Posted by tchariya

We talk lots about the absorption qualities of MH/RH beads..but no one ever talks about the RH absorption qualities of the leaf itself...in and out of cello. I would suspect that it would take a bit more time for the environment to even itself out once you introduce cigars into the equation. If anything, the beads will need to be hydrated back to life to feed the 'dryer' cigars.

Just throwing random thoughts out there.

Than

That is very possible.

Another thing to consider with a cooler full of cedar boxes and cigars is that they will also aid in bringing the new additions up to the proper RH.

These beads can really draw the moisture. As stated above, they brought the RH from 55% to 50% in an hour and brought it up to 67% (17% change) in eight hours when I added the dish of water and this is 104 quarts of air with a couple boxes that were stored at 55% for nearly a week before the beads arrived.

Part of me wishes I would have left the water in all day today to see if they would allow the cooler to go over 72%. Now I can hardly wait to see how much the beads absorb in the 17 hours I'm away.

[DH01]

is there a diffence between MH beads and RH beads? if so, where can MH beads be bought?

[nosaj02]

Very interesting. When you say you put a dish of dist. water in the cooler, were the beads inside the water or separate?

[tzaddi]

It is good to see that the ranks of Scott AKA shilala's Legion of Science has grown.

I understand that he will be issuing membership cards soon.

Have you learned the secret handshake yet?

In the name of science carry-on this valuable and meaningful work for all BOTL/SOTL's across the globe.

[Zoomschwortz]

Originally Posted by nosaj02

Very interesting. When you say you put a dish of dist. water in the cooler, were the beads inside the water or separate?

Water and beads were separate.

If water is added directly to the beads, the beads will get hot due to the friction created by the water entering the bead.

[shilala]

I'll try to answer a couple questions about the beads.
MHbeads are a molecular composite dessicant. They are used in lab work and in very high temperature applications. They don't care what the temperature is around them, they flatline around 40 degrees F. and stay steadily active across the board to around 2000 degrees F where they go up in smoke.
The cool thing about these beads are that they are incredibly uniform. They also have incredibly uniform pores, 4 angstroms across. In comparison, silica gel beads or "RHbeads" have pores ranging from 2 to 120 angstroms across and are not at all uniform.
MHbeads also hold a much higher volume of water than do RHbeads.

Their greatest asset, or maybe their greatest downfall is that they gather up or let go of water at an extremely rapid rate.

My thoughts are that they'd be awesome in a humi because they react so quickly.
What I'm finding out is this:

When a door gets open the beads go to work immediately at a rapid rate. When the door is closed, the beads continue doing their thing.
They do it so rapidly that they condition the air faster than they can come to equilibrium.
Then they keep working to maintain equilibrium, spiking and dropping in rapid sucession.
It creates a boing, boing, boing effect that Ken described.

That's good and it's bad.
For instance, it can fool me. I think the RH is settled and use that reading to take action, and in reality I should have waited an hour or a day before I reacted.

Anyways...
A few guys are trying these out. That way we can figure out what they're doing.
Another downside to the beads is that they are crazy expensive.
I do think that if I can harness them, the cost will actually turn into a comparable value.
That's the gamble for me.
I hope this stuff works out.
My wine coolers are sitting rock solid and have been for weeks.
One is 60% on the dot and the other is at 55% on the dot.
I used a pan of polygel soaked with PG and distilled water to bring the other wine cooler up very slowly until it settled at 63%. In a couple day's time it settled at 60% and has never moved one iota.
I let the other wine cooler alone because I want to watch it slowly, too.
I wanted to make sure that it's equilibrium is 55% before I do anything and that's what it looks like. (Equilibrium means that everything, cigars, shelves, boxes, air are all equal RH%age.)
When I attack that wine cooler I'll pay close attention to what happens.

This stuff is really cool, I hope it works out better than I imagined.
So far it works really well, I just need to better understand how it's doing what it's doing.

[BengalMan]

very interesting thread, look forward to seeing how this works out in the long run.

[Scimmia]

If we could get these with the same treatments as the Heartfelt bead so that we'd have a kind of "set point", we'd be pretty close to the ultimate solution. Of course, that's all assuming that EMC is linear with RH, but we won't go into that.

shilala, any luck finding out how the beads that we're using are treated?

[Zoomschwortz]

Originally Posted by Scimmia

If we could get these with the same treatments as the Heartfelt bead so that we'd have a kind of "set point", we'd be pretty close to the ultimate solution. Of course, that's all assuming that EMC is linear with RH, but we won't go into that.

shilala, any luck finding out how the beads that we're using are treated?

It is way too early for me to know what is going on and it is just as likely luck as not, but I find it interesting that I hit 72% both times when water was present and the RH stopped at 65% when the water was removed the first time. I can't wait to check it tonight when I get home to see if it stopped at 65% again.

If by chance (this is too much to ask) they won't go over 72% RH the cigars would be safe at it's higher limit when water is added and can't be removed from the humidor right away.

Has anyone seen Scotts MHbeads go over 72% RH?

Again, this is way to early to tell, but it seems they have an upper set point of 72% when water is present and then drops to the lower set point of 65% when water is removed.

Take care
Ken

[nosaj02]

Shilala was this the same material used in making those sausage looking things?

[shilala]

Originally Posted by Scimmia

If we could get these with the same treatments as the Heartfelt bead so that we'd have a kind of "set point", we'd be pretty close to the ultimate solution. Of course, that's all assuming that EMC is linear with RH, but we won't go into that.

shilala, any luck finding out how the beads that we're using are treated?

Not a clue. There are an unlimited number of treatments that can be added to beads to contol their set point.
I'm from the camp that I don't want anything in my beads because then I can set them at whatever point I want.
If I buy a couple pounds of beads I can use half at 60% or 65% for my wine cooler and the other half at 70% for my humidor.
I can mess around tweaking them for custom RH%ages anywhere in between, too.
But see, I'm an idiot when it comes to that stuff. I like to nib and play and tweak and drive myself insane.
Other guys like to just "set it and forget it" which obviously has it's advantages.
By not adding chemicals or salts to the beads, they remain uniquely versatile. I want to keep that versatility.
In order to deliver a "set point" solution I've created gel bags that are treated with salts. I can set that gel bag in my humidor and being that it's set at 66% it will in turn cause my equilibrium set point to be 66%.
It's an easy way to condition everything.
I've had troubles with bags splitting and I've fixed that.
I've also had troubles with the set-point gels, so I've stopped working with them for the time being so that I can focus on conditioning.
I also needed to take time and make some RHbeadsticks so I can make a few bucks to pay for some more materials.
This game ain't cheap.

[shilala]

Originally Posted by nosaj02

Shilala was this the same material used in making those sausage looking things?

Nope. That was polyacrylamide gel hydrated with distilled water.
The jelly stuff like in drymistat tubes.
I use them for conditioning beads sometimes.