Silica Gel Guide

The synthetic route for producing silica gel was patented by chemistry professor Walter A. Patrick at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland in 1919. It was used in World War I for the absorption of vapors and gases in gas mask canisters, as part of his patent. The substance was in existence as early as the 1640s as a scientific curiosity.[1]

In World War II, silica gel was indispensable in the war effort for keeping penicillin dry, protecting military equipment from moisture damage, as a fluid cracking catalyst for the production of high octane gasoline, and as a catalyst support for the manufacture of butadiene from ethanol, feedstock for the synthetic rubber program....