Engineering ToolBox - Resources, Tools and Basic Information for Engineering and Design of Technical Applications!

Relative Humidity in Production and Process Environments

Recommended relative humidity in production and process environments - like libraries, breweries, storages and more.

Sponsored Links

Environment and indoor climate must often be within certain temperature and humidity limits to avoid deterioration and damage of products or to achieve proper process conditions.

To low relative humidity may dry up products and to high relative humidity may increase the "water activity" and the growing of mold and bacteria in process lines and their products.

  • bacteria need in general more than 90% relative humidity to grow
  • mold need in general more than 80% relative humidity to grow

The exact water activity limit for a specific organism depends on other factors such as pH, oxygen availability, the nature of the solutes present, nutrient availability and temperature. 

Recommended relative humidity for some common production and product process are indicated in the table below.

Production
and
Process Environment
Recommended
Relative Humidity
- RH -
(%)
Sugar Storage 20 - 35%
Breweries 35 - 45%
Coffee Powder 30 - 40%
Milk Powder Storage 20 - 35%
Seed Storage 35 - 45%
Unpacked Medicine 20 - 35%
Transformer Winding 15 - 30%
Semiconductors 30 - 50%
Books and Paper Archive 40 - 55%
Paper Storage 35 - 45%
Preventing Rust and Corrosion below 55%,
< 40% for no rust generation
Library 50 - 55%
Spray Paint 30 - 50%
Laboratory electronics 45 - 60%
Plastic Pallets 5 - 30%
Computer Peripherals 50 - 60%
Rust Resistance Below 40%
Medical Syrups 30 - 40%
Capsule Storage 30 - 45%
Powder Storage 30 - 45%
Wood Drying 25 - 35%
Explosives 35 - 50%
Note!
low RH may generate static electricity and spark ignitions
Normal Storage 50 - 55%
Musical Instrument 45 - 55%
Leather Product 40 - 55%
Cable Wrapping 15 - 25%
Chemical Laboratory 30 - 45%
Sponsored Links

Related Topics

Related Documents

Sponsored Links

Engineering ToolBox - SketchUp Extension - Online 3D modeling!

3D Engineering ToolBox Extension to SketchUp - add parametric components to your SketchUp model

Add standard and customized parametric components - like flange beams, lumbers, piping, stairs and more - to your Sketchup model with the Engineering ToolBox - SketchUp Extension - enabled for use with the amazing, fun and free SketchUp Make and SketchUp Pro .Add the Engineering ToolBox extension to your SketchUp from the SketchUp Pro Sketchup Extension Warehouse!

Translate
About the Engineering ToolBox!

Privacy

We don't collect information from our users. Only emails and answers are saved in our archive. Cookies are only used in the browser to improve user experience.

Some of our calculators and applications let you save application data to your local computer. These applications will - due to browser restrictions - send data between your browser and our server. We don't save this data.

Google use cookies for serving our ads and handling visitor statistics. Please read Google Privacy & Terms for more information about how you can control adserving and the information collected.

AddThis use cookies for handling links to social media. Please read AddThis Privacy for more information.

Citation

This page can be cited as

  • Engineering ToolBox, (2003). Relative Humidity in Production and Process Environments. [online] Available at: https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/relative-humidity-production-process-d_511.html [Accessed Day Mo. Year].

Modify access date.

. .

close

3D Engineering ToolBox - draw and model technical applications! 2D Engineering ToolBox - create and share online diagram drawing templates! Engineering ToolBox Apps - mobile online and offline engineering applications!

Scientific Online Calculator

Scientific Calculator

3 30

Sponsored Links
.