Regenerating

Silica gel can be regenerated by heating up to 120°C or higher and therefore desorbing the water molecules from the surface area. drying again. Desorption is the reversion of adsorption occurrences. The van-der-Waals force, which is the main driving force at adsorption, is being weakened, so that the water molecules can be removed from the silica surface.

Only due to co-adsorption of other mostly organic substances the total available surface area might be contaminated and therefore not be active for adsorbing moisture at the original loading capacity. If the adsorption ability becomes inadequate the silica gel must be exchanged.