Understanding Relative Humidity Control
Humidity is defined as a condition of moisture in the air that is usually, but not always, invisible. Relative humidity is based on the ratio of water vapor actually present in the air to the amount of water the air could hold, and it is usually described as a percentage. For example, weather reporters use phrases like, “Humidity is at 80 percent today.” The “80 percent” means the air is 20 percent of the way from being fully saturated by water vapors.
Relative humidity control is a big deal, as you are about to see. The reason that it is called Relative humidity is because the higher the temperatures are, the higher the capacity of the air to hold water. The two are directly related. As a rough rule of thumb you could say that for every 18° F rise in temperature, the air’s ability to hold water doubles. Lets use an example to illustrate it.
Say we have a storage room with an air temperature of 70 degrees Fahrenheit, and the air can hold 10 gallons of water but only actually carries 2. When you crunch the numbers you would find that the air is at 20% relative humidity. Now we will raise the temperature from 70° F to 88° F, but leave the amount of water in the air at 2 gallons. We have gone up 18°, so the capacity of the air to hold water will have doubled from 10 gallons to 20 gallons. When you recalculate the relative humidity using the new numbers you will find that the relative humidity is now 10%. So even though the amount of moisture in the air is the same the relative humidity has dropped, and if you were to go the other way you would see that as the temperature drops the relative humidity would rise.
Effective Relative Humidity Control
Many products and varieties of produce thrive in certain temperatures and with certain humidity points. No matter where the storage room is, if the room temperature changes, the humidity levels change as well, resulting in potential damage to or degredation of the produce. This is why it is important to control relative humidity levels.
Smart Fog has developed a relative humidity control system able to constantly monitor the humidity of any room and make necessary changes to keep the humidity and room temperatures constant. If higher or lower moisture levels are needed in the room for any reason, the DryFog system can compensate to create the desired amount of humidity. Contact us with any questions you may have. You can take total control of the humidity you need.