Silica Gel Dehumidifier

The Silica Gel Dehumidifier is a Stage 5 water source that runs on desiccant beads instead of weather. Each dry bead soaks up a fixed amount of water and comes out saturated. You then dry the saturated beads in a Furnace and feed them back in.

It needs no power and ignores sky access, biome, rain, and dimension, so it works anywhere, including underground and in the Nether. Your real cost is the Furnace energy spent recharging beads. Like the Wooden Dehumidifier, it has no rarity, affixes, Refinement, or Mastery.

Obtaining

Crafting

One casing recipe makes two casings, which is exactly one column.

Ingredients	Crafting recipe	Notes
Silica Gel Dehumidifier Glass + Silica Gel Beads + Aluminum Plate + Advanced Machine Frame + Aluminum Casing		Requires the Aluminum material to be enabled.
Silica Gel Column Casing Glass Pane + Silica Gel Beads + Aluminum Plate + Aluminum Casing	2	Requires the Aluminum material to be enabled.
Silica Gel Beads Glass + Nether Quartz + Sand + Redstone Dust	8

Supercharged beads

Supercharged Silica Gel Beads hold more than three times as much water as normal beads. Make them in an Alloy Furnace with Stage 6 parts at 1,450 heat:

Input		Output	Time	Heat	Min. temperature	Min. component stage
4	→		12 s	5,793 HU	1,450	6

Breaking

Mine the controller or a casing with a pickaxe. Each block drops itself, and the controller also drops the beads in its lanes. Breaking a casing only pauses the machine; the beads and stored water stay in the controller.

Usage

Building the structure

The only valid shape is a three-block column:

1. Place the Silica Gel Dehumidifier controller.
2. Stack two Silica Gel Column Casing blocks directly on top of it.

If either casing is missing, all three lanes pause. Nothing is lost, and work resumes as soon as the column is complete again.

Drying the air

The controller has three independent lanes. Put dry beads in any lane's input slot. Each lane turns one dry bead into one saturated bead and adds water to a shared 10,000 mB tank:

Dry bead	Water per bead	Time	All three lanes
Silica Gel Beads	945 mB	1,134 ticks	3 buckets/min
Supercharged Silica Gel Beads	3,150 mB	1,134 ticks	10 buckets/min

A lane stops if its saturated output slot is full or the water tank cannot fit the next batch. The bead and the water change hands only when the batch finishes. At full speed, one stack of dry beads lasts about 20 minutes.

The absorption recipes use the rngtech:desiccant_absorption recipe type.

Input		Output	Time
	→	945	56.7 s
	→	3.15k	56.7 s

Recharging beads

Smelt saturated beads in an RNGTech Furnace to dry them out again. They dry at 120 °C, like real silica gel. Recharging gives back exactly the bead you put in, never a bonus bead. Beads pushed past their overheat temperature with the overheat slider can burn to Ash, which you can put in a Composter.

Input		Output	Time	Heat	Min. temperature
	→		60 s	17,280 HU	120

Input		Output	Time	Heat	Min. temperature
	→		120 s	34,560 HU	120

Getting water out

Pipes can drain water from the controller's four horizontal sides, or from the horizontal sides of either casing. The machine has no bucket slot, so use pipes or a Universal Cable.

To throw water away, use the purge button beside the tank, or right-click the controller with a Purge Bucket to void up to 1,000 mB.

Automation

Side	Behavior
Top	Inserts dry beads into the lane input slots.
Bottom	Extracts saturated beads from the lane output slots.
Sides	Drain water.
Casing sides	Drain water on behalf of the controller while the column is complete.

The casings sit on the controller's top face once the column is built, so you usually load dry beads by hand. The machine never accepts fluid, and has no FE connection. Casings do not handle items.

Screen

The Silica Gel Dehumidifier has a single screen with three input and output lane pairs, the shared water tank, and its purge button. Hover the gauges for lane progress, water amount, structure state, and status.

Data values

Name	Resource location	Form	Translation key
Silica Gel Dehumidifier	rngtech:silica_gel_dehumidifier	Block	block.rngtech.silica_gel_dehumidifier
Silica Gel Column Casing	rngtech:silica_gel_column_casing	Block	block.rngtech.silica_gel_column_casing
Silica Gel Beads	rngtech:silica_gel_beads	Item	item.rngtech.silica_gel_beads
Saturated Silica Gel Beads	rngtech:saturated_silica_gel_beads	Item	item.rngtech.saturated_silica_gel_beads
Supercharged Silica Gel Beads	rngtech:supercharged_silica_gel_beads	Item	item.rngtech.supercharged_silica_gel_beads
Saturated Supercharged Silica Gel Beads	rngtech:saturated_supercharged_silica_gel_beads	Item	item.rngtech.saturated_supercharged_silica_gel_beads

See also

• Wooden Dehumidifier: the early weather-driven water source.
• Furnace
• Alloy Furnace

RNGTech wiki

Guides	Automation · Battery Cells · Dormant Machines · Gear · Getting Started · Heat · Machine Mastery · Machine Stats · Modpack Creators · Power Chains · Rarity and Affixes · Stages · Uniques
Processing	Alloy Furnace · Component Assembler · Component Recycler · Crusher · Furnace · Melter · Metal Press · Resonance Calibrator · Wooden Composter
Power generation	Bio Generator · Cavitation Generator · Corrosion Cell · Fuel Cell · Potential Reactor · Solar Panel · Solid Fuel Burner · Syngas Combustor · Vacuum Collapse Generator
Energy storage	Battery Chassis
Fluids and gases	Algae Photobioreactor · Ammonia Synthesizer · Coal Gasifier · Fluid and Compressor Tanks · Silica Gel Dehumidifier · Steam Methane Reformer · Wooden Dehumidifier
Refinement	Affix Forge · Exotic Affix Forge
Logistics	Universal Cable
Tools	Forestry Cart Station · Miner's Companion · Modular Tools · Tool Bench