subsecret
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OTC Calcium Chloride - Good for Drying
I found this at my local hardware store, in the pool section: HTH Calcium Plus. The entire container cost me about $7. I heated about 5 grams of it in
a crucible until most of it had melted, and figured out that the mass had not changed much. The MSDS says that it contains several percent water, so
heating it in an oven would be a good idea before use. The MSDS lists it as 90-95% CaCl2, and it comes in the form of small prills, about
1-2 mm in diameter.
Fear is what you get when caution wasn't enough.
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Texium
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I've found that anhydrous calcium chloride can also be purchased at the hardware store in the cleaning supplies area, used for drying out damp areas.
I can't remember the brand name, but the stuff I found was in a sealed blue plastic bag. It's in the form of nice white prills that look quite pure.
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aga
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Slap it onto a hotplate. Heat it a lot.
It will end up as a white cake that you have to scrape off of the plate.
Not exactly anhydrous, but damned close.
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subsecret
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@zts16: I believe that it's sold as Damp-Rid. I've seen paper cartons and plastic cups of this stuff.
Fear is what you get when caution wasn't enough.
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Bert
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Quote: Originally posted by aga  | Slap it onto a hotplate. Heat it a lot.
It will end up as a white cake that you have to scrape off of the plate.
Not exactly anhydrous, but damned close.
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Or microwave it in a casserole-
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macckone
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If you live in a cold climate, Qik Joe Ice Melt is basically calcium chloride with a few other chlorides as contaminants. Specifically, sodium
chloride, potassium chloride and strontium chloride.
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CaptainPike
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I have baked the cheap stuff that comes in the huge bag from Walmart (or at every convenience store, these days) in the kitchen oven, along with other
desiccants such as magnesium sulfate and a copper salt used to kill roots. The latter being especially handy when appropriate, since it will turn a
nice blue when it encounters water – just like sending a probe down below the cloudy atmosphere of a hostile planet and receiving it back data from
the invisible depths below.
With the calcium chloride, I didn't see much physical change in the prills, or beads really, even after having been subjected to 525°F for at least a
half an hour. Whereas the sulfates mentioned both powdered up, with the cupric one additionally losing almost all of its brilliant blue hue.
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aga
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I get the feeling that you need introducing to Jamie Oliver.
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/beef-recipes/jools-s-favo...
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aga
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I saw a couple of organic solvents go from cloudy to clear after adding anhydrous CaCl2, hopefully meaning that the remaining water was
sequestrated.
No change seen in the calcium chloride though, unless there's a LOT of water, in which case it turns to slush.
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dermolotov
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Yupp. This is what I recommend in lue of impure Magnesium Sulphate and others.
This I have found to interfere much less and dissolve completely in water with no insolubles. I just bake for 30 minutes on 425 on my $5 toaster oven.
As mentioned, bit becomes a hard cake that I scrape off and into a powder.
I get it from Wal-Mart 
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BobD1001
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Here in Pennsylvania during the winter months you can find huge amount of pure calcium chloride (used to melt ice on walkways) for dirt cheap. A
couple hours before reading this post I bought a 50lb resealable bucket of pure calcium chloride (marketed as pure, I'm sure there are some impurities
and water content) for $19.99 at BJ's wholesale since we just had our first snowstorm. I will also use it as a desiccant when I dont want to use my
molecular sieves.
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