Silica Gel Disadvantages

Do you know what is actually a silica gel? Or how much you know about it? Organic chemistry is a vast area as we know. Synthetic chemistry is one of the subdisciplines of organic chemistry. It involves the synthesis of chemical compounds. One important element in the synthetic chemistry discipline is the purification of the synthesized chemical compounds.

There are different methods to purify the chemical compounds but the most preferred one is the chromatographic technique. Chromatography is a technique of separating and analyzing the components of a mixture of liquids or gases by selective adsorption on to the medium like paper, alumina, silica gel, and more.

Out of all mediums, the most preferred one is silica gel. Due to its amorphous and porous nature used for achieving the desired separation of certain molecular sizes. Due to silica gel's polarity, non-polar components tend to separate mixtures very cleanly.

Most of us are familiar with silica gel desiccant. But the question is, Is it good to use silica gel to its maximum extent? The answer is NO. It causes a lot of hazards to the human body. As we know it is an inactive substance. Therefore we are thinking it is not dangerous. Many people are thinking it is safe and there is no problem while consuming it unknowingly.

Actually, desiccants are not much dangerous to use it with packed food products. But consuming it barely is not a good thing. We can see the writings above the sachets "Do not eat". It is as a precaution. From developing and poor countries, most of the researchers using silica gel manually without knowing its Hazardous nature.

Inhaling silica gel desiccant for long years is a cause of respiratory issues. Desiccants have an amorphous nature. therefore it can easily enter into the respiratory system of Humans and causes a lot of effects.