Final Thoughts
We encourage that your project be about keeping a desiccant away from the food while sharing the same air. Our benefactor expressed worry over what would happen if the desiccant bag ripped and it got in the food. Desiccants in general aren't good to ingest. And these people may come home from a long day of work and could be too tired to separate a spilled desiccant and just use the food. Or possibly worse, need to throw out all the food.
Our suggestion is a metal cup that the desiccant bag can sit in so it's an easy removal in the event of a broken bag. That's just an idea and may not be possible, look into it yourselves.
Here is a MSDS for Calcium Chloride: http://www.labchem.com/tools/msds/msds/75446.pdf
Here is a MSDS for Silica Gel: https://www.nwmissouri.edu/naturalsciences/sds/s/Silica%20Gel%20mesh.pdf
Use your judgment on if you want to use either of these or a new one because you don't like either from their MSDS.
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Below, we have highlighted two possible paths that future groups can research and design to further this project.
Rodent Prevention
The first option for future experiments is tackling the rodent infestation problem. Rats can eat through almost every storage material: wood, improperly cured concrete, brick, lead, and more (thepestcontrolauthority.com). The only plausible solutions are to create a barrier or jug made of stone or concrete so rats are not able to chew through the material to reach the food. However, our group discussed how feasible it would be for our communities to make stone/concrete jugs or to ship over these materials. We decided to test this strategy would not be effective and suggest that the next group communicate with our contacts on holistic strategies. Megan Manary informed us that villages utilize dogs to scare away rats and that rodents are not likely to go into homes.
Drying Out Desiccant
(above picture): Blue desiccant is "regular", meaning no absorbancy has occurred. Pink desiccant is what is observed at maximum absorbancy.
The second option for further research is testing the reusability of desiccant packets. As discussed in class, Western society is primarily "one use", as in when one desiccant packet has reached max capacity, we throw it away for a new one. However, our communities in Africa will reuse products after they have reached max capacity. Therefore, we want to use a desiccant ant that allows for recyclability. We observed the color changing silica gel beads would be green at max absorbancy and no absorbancy is white gel beads. We observed that the max absorbed beads would turn green to white while sitting on the table after a couple of days. Research suggests using an oven to dry out desiccant; however, our communities can adapt by laying desiccant packets on a metal sheet in the sun for quicker drying or storing in a cool area in a bowl for "natural" drying.