Relationship between regeneration air consumption and electricity consumption of desiccant dryer

As more and more customers are concerned about air quality, compressed air treatment equipment for air compressors (referred to as after-treatment equipment) is becoming more and more important. For some special applications, such as food, pharmaceutical, precision electronics and various other industries, water in compressed air not only affects the end line, but even has a very significant impact on the quality of the finished product, which is not acceptable to the user.

As we mentioned in the previous article, the ISO standard for measuring compressed air is ISO 8573-1:2010, and the highest achievable pressure dew point is 3°C (corresponding to the compressed air quality level of 4 water content) according to the design principle of refrigerated air dryers. If customers ask for higher pressure dew point, such as -20℃/-40℃/-70℃ pressure dew point, the common choice on the market is adsorption dryer, referred to as suction dryer.

The basic principle of adsorption dryer is to adsorb the water in compressed air through desiccant. According to the desiccant regeneration method, it can be divided into series products such as no heat, micro heat, air blast and compressed heat.

The regeneration of desiccant needs to consume a certain proportion of compressed air or electric energy, which will generate additional energy consumption. Therefore, in addition to the quality of compressed air, its energy consumption level is also very important to measure the performance of desiccant regeneration. Next, we will compare the advantages and disadvantages of different types of desiccant regeneration:

Heatless: Heatless regenerative desiccant dryers are used to adsorb the moisture in compressed air through desiccant, and the machines are composed of two identical towers respectively, with the cycle switching between adsorption and regeneration. When the cycle cycle ends to switch the function of each other, the regeneration gas needs to consume a certain percentage of the finished compressed air.

Micro-thermal: Micro-thermal regenerative adsorption dryers are mostly similar to heatless regenerative adsorption dryers, heated by electric heaters thus reducing the consumption of compressed air.

Blast: The blast regeneration adsorption dryer is similar to the general heatless adsorption dryer, but the regeneration method is blast regeneration, and for the zero air consumption model, this part of the regeneration air can also be recycled.

Compressed heat: The compressed heat generated by the compressor is used to achieve the drying process, which can reduce energy consumption and costs.

Lingyu Machinery ~ low dew point regenerative desiccant compressed air dryer