Cut 'em open and pour them in a jar with a tight seal. When you need a pack, microwave hell out of some and rubber band them into a piece of coffee filter.

The colored beads indicate how water saturated they are. When they're nuked and dried out, they change color. YMMV as some manufacturers use different colors or none at all. Whatever. Nuke 'em and reuse.

It's an exciting hobby.

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[–] 6 points 1 day ago* (10 children)

silicone's melting point

Silica?

Edit: Not trying to be a dick. Genuinely confused is my default these days.

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  • [–] [S] 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (9 children)

    Meh. Silica's just SiO₂. Close enough for government work.

    EDIT: Damnit. Now I had to look up the melting point of silicone dioxide to make sure I wasn't full of shit. 3,115°F

    If anyone can achieve that in a microwave, they're in for a Nobel in physics.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 day ago (3 children)

    Anyone can, really. You just need to insulate things. Guess there well be plenty of Nobel prizes next time.

    In any case, silica does not need to get near the melting point to lose it's ability to adsorb water. Best to help it below 150 °C to not damage the microstructure.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Feeling dangerously close to learning a new thing... I would like to know more.

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  • [–] 7 points 22 hours ago (4 children)

    You keep writing "silicone" (a.k.a. polysiloxane) when you mean "silicon." That might be what the other user is confused about.

    Silicone is often confused with one of its constituent elements, silicon. Silicon, a hard gray solid, is used to make integrated circuits ("electronic chips") and solar cells. In contrast, silicones, which tend to be electrical insulators, are often colorless oils or rubbery resin.

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  • [–] 2 points 19 hours ago*

    In some languages (e.g. Hebrew, my native language) the words are homonyms. Spelled the same, pronounced the same. So speakers of those languages might not even be aware that they're different materials. I'll go as far as to say most of those speakers don't know.

    So for English-as-a-second-language speakers, miscommunications like this are pretty likely.

    You did well to explain the difference without being mean about it :)

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  • [–] 1 point 15 hours ago* (2 children)

    I mean, I love pedantry, but this is wrong.

    He means "silica" which is the main dioxide of silicon.

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