A BRIEF Look at the Moisture Problem
Humidity, water vapour, moisture & condensation can cause devastating damage and cost a company thousands of rupees every year for maintenance. The air surrounding us is partially made up of water vapour. A relative amount of water vapour (RH – Relative Humidity) varies between 60-90% in air surrounding us.
The negative impact of moisture can be merely explained as such; when air is saturated with water vapour at a given temperature it can no longer absorb moisture at which point humidity is 100%, also known as dew point or condensation takes place consequentially dumping the water vapour into drop of water. Constant levels of Humidity impacts items of our daily life. The effect of humidity are invariably felt when these products are stored for long periods of time. This includes Pharmaceutical, Electronic, Engineering, Chemical, Oil/Gas, Food, Packaging & Logistic Industry.
Moisture can cause pharmaceuticals & chemical products to undergo hydrolytic degradation, from mould, mildew, loss in efficacy, unwanted impurities, soggy tablets, capsules, moisture absorbed by API & powders
For Electronics humidity can cause irreversible damage to circuitry, nodes, transmitters, resistors & rusting metal parts. High humidity can also cause sparks and short circuits in working environment of the electronics.
For Engineering goods water vapour will simply rust the working parts of machinery, impact functionality, reliability & safety of moving parts. Metal parts can become frail and buckle underweight at essential points.
Food & spices can become spoiled by sogginess, change in taste, colour & smells are commonly seen. Health issues like mould, mildew, toxins, insects can also occur due to high moisture content. Packaging of food items can also sustain critical damage as cardboar & paper packaging can loose it’s integrity.
Logistics, Shipping & Transportationindustry is greatly affected by outside environmental conditions with the highest fluctuation. Cargo Containers voyaging on sea or land are both susceptible to moisture and humidity damage as, water vapour will slowly seep into the container from vents etc. Temperature & Humidity variation can lead to cargo shipments to take up soaring amounts of water vapour and cause condensation inside cargo containers.Oceanic & sea voyages can see temperature variants in day time of 50 oC to – 20 oC at night. As a cargo container cools the water vapour in the void space starts to condense into droplets of water and hence forms cargo rain or container condensation. Ultimately, the goods and packaging will be damaged by this phenomenon over weeks and months.
