(First question on stackexchange, apologies for any faux pas) Ebola workers get drenched in sweat while working inside their personal protective equipment. There's a discussion happening over on OpenIdeo about whether the desiccant packs used in shipping containers might help reduce humidity: https://openideo.com/challenge/fighting-ebola/ideas/desiccant-embedded-ppe-suit-to-keep-ppe-dry-and-bearable Questions for the chemists: What are the reaction products of a calcium chloride + starch desiccant pack with humid air? In particular, would it generate any gases? (That'd obviously be a problem inside an impermeable suit) The worker sweats to carry away heat evaporatively. Presumably most of that body heat would need to pass through the desiccant pack as the sweat gets absorbed, and would need to be transmitted outside the suit in order to be worthwhile. It looks like the reaction is also exothermic. How much total heat would need to be removed from the pack, and is this going to be too much to dissipate? Any other risks to be aware of with this idea?

Calcium chloride + starch desiccant packs inside PPE for ebola workers?

Chemistry Asked by Jason Holt on December 30, 2020

(First question on stackexchange, apologies for any faux pas)

Ebola workers get drenched in sweat while working inside their personal protective equipment. There’s a discussion happening over on OpenIdeo about whether the desiccant packs used in shipping containers might help reduce humidity:
https://openideo.com/challenge/fighting-ebola/ideas/desiccant-embedded-ppe-suit-to-keep-ppe-dry-and-bearable

Questions for the chemists:

What are the reaction products of a calcium chloride + starch desiccant pack with humid air? In particular, would it generate any gases? (That’d obviously be a problem inside an impermeable suit)
The worker sweats to carry away heat evaporatively. Presumably most of that body heat would need to pass through the desiccant pack as the sweat gets absorbed, and would need to be transmitted outside the suit in order to be worthwhile. It looks like the reaction is also exothermic. How much total heat would need to be removed from the pack, and is this going to be too much to dissipate?
Any other risks to be aware of with this idea?

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