Biodegradable Plant Fiber Moisture Control Material And Its Manufacturing Process Research And Development

Different products have different requirement in RH conditions of use and storage such as Electronic products, food, pharmaceuticals, garments, exhibits and so on, all of them need a stable relative humidity. At present, according to the energy resources whether to be consumed, there are two ways, active and passive, to adjust the closed environmental RH. Active way means heating system in existence, mainly used in indoor environment such as workroom, warehouse, and Cultural Relics Storage, which consuming a lot of energies. In addition, this method cannot keep a stable and accurate RH due to the influence from facilities'principle of operation, and location of air canal. Whereas, passive method just controls the environmental RH by using moisture absorption and desorption capacity of some specific materials, which has such advantages as energy saving, stable control, safety and security, especially for some small closed environments.The passive humidity controlling has been widely applied. There are mainly four types:Silica gels, inorganic salts, inorganic minerals, organic polymers and so on. But they all have some shortages. Some of them have bad adsorption capacity. Calcuim lime, for example, is harmful and toxic, and cannot be directly used in food and pharmaceuticals. Other traditional products are almost all granular, wrapped by small bag material with good air permeability. There must be space held in package for putting humidity controlling materials in. But the leakage of granules may happen when collision occures.In domestic and foreign market, humidity controlling products are mainly silica gel, whose adsorption rate is around 30%. "The drier, the better" is not right for all the products. Some Chinese materia medica preparations are well protected in 40%RH envrionment.With the improvement of level and quality of living, people attach more and more importance to the performance of materials wether they are friendly to environment. Silica gel uses sulphuric acid as one of its raw materials, thus bringing pollution during production. Silica gel itself is also indegradable. There are almost billion tons of silica gel products consumed in domestic market each year. Much of hidden danger brings to humanbeing.Fiber humidity controlling product is made by such raw materials as straw, bulrush, wood and cotton pulp, bagasse and so on, making such wastes profitable. This product has strong absorption capacity and wide buffering range for RH. According to the ability of fiber's water lock,the pore size of solid adsorbent granule, and mixture ratio of inorganic salts in buffering liquid, the absorption capacity of fiber desiccant can be up to 100% of its own weight.This product is not only harmless and non-toxic to human body, but completely degradable and a real environmentally-friendly product.Another innovation is that sheet shape of this product can be freely cut to save packaging space, safe and no leakage, giving more solutions to packing industry.