The Intellistat Ion Air Nozzle has been used in clean room applications. These have been used most commonly to keep contaminants away from packaging and labeling areas. The Intellistat Ion Air Nozzle has a clean room classification: ISO 14644-1 Class 5, operational.
Please enjoy the Video below where I introduce and demonstrate EXAIRS newest addition to the Static Eliminator product line!
If you have any questions on the Intellistat Ion Air Nozzle or have a static problem you’d like to discuss, give us a call or shoot us an email
Deliquescent dryers can sometimes be confusing. Some compressed air dryer vendors use the terms deliquescent and desiccant synonomously as if they were interchangeable in describing their equipment. The deliquescent dryers are not a complex drying system and found most commonly in the petrochemical industry.
Unlike any other dryer, a deliquescent dryer is also used to reduce or remove moisture before it turns to liquid water. These dryers can be installed indoors, outdoors, offshore or any remote location. They do not require electric for operational purposes or have any moving parts, making them easy to maintain and economically more efficient. In a deliquescent dryer, moist air (gas) passes over a layer of deliquescent tablets which absorb moisture from the air. The pressure dew point lowers as the tablets slowly dissolve, the condensation falls into the drain area, and the drier air flows through the outlet into the piping system.
The best deliquescent materials are salts with a strong attraction for moisture. Deliquescent desiccants (drying tablets) are formulated from calcium chloride, magnesium chloride, potassium chloride and lithium chloride. Not all deliquescent desiccants are equal. The final formulation and properties of the desiccant can have significant impact on the design of a dryer tank. That is, the surface of the desiccant chemical, often beads or pellets, will liquefy, and the resulting liquid will flow to the bottom of the vessel. There is either a drain (manual or auto) at the base of the deliquescent dryer which is used to expel the collected fluid.
Some factors that will affect the consumption of the desiccant are the type of adsorbent, type of adsorbate, the size of the adsorbent bead or pellet, the concentration of the adsorbate in the compressed air stream, and the temperature of that air stream.
You will want to have a water trap, also known as a general purpose compressed air filter plumbed in line just upstream from the deliquescent dryer. Otherwise, any liquid water flowing with the compressed air into the air dryer will make short work of the desiccant chemical, requiring a more frequent – and expensive – recharge.
The compressing of air generates heat. That hot, moist compressed air will consume the desiccant chemical in the deliquescent dryer much more quickly. Best practice is to ensure the air flow to the dryer is as cool as possible with, if possible, a long air line and a dwell tank prior to the deliquescent dryer to allow the air to cool and have water saturate out naturally.
A deliquescent dryer can be expected to reduce the compressed air dew point by 20 – 30 deg. F, or so. The degree of drying depends how saturated the airflow is going in and on the type of deliquescent chemical used.
Unlike other forms of compressed air dryers, a deliquescent unit doesn’t guarantee the air will reach a certain dew point. The amount of water vapor in the air that exits the dryer is completely predicated on how much water vapor is in the air going into the dryer.
I hope this helps increase your understanding of deliquescent dryers. EXAIR has many Intelligent Compressed Air tools and accessories. We would love to help you learn more about our products. Please contact us as we are eager to help.
When larger areas need to be covered with an ionized air stream and the surfaces needing to be covered are not flat, then an array of Gen4 Ion Air Cannons can often be the solution. This is something that the automotive industry as well as many others have been using since before I have been a part of the EXAIR team. So just how does the Gen4 Ion Air Cannon achieve this?
At its core, the Gen4 IAC is designed around a 2″ Super Air Amplifier, and then we add ionization and a stand. The largest benefit to this is the ability of the Super Air Amplifier to entrain large volumes of free ambient air while using small amounts of compressed air. By entraining large volumes of free ambient air and then directing it down through the throat of the IAC and ionizing it upon exit of the barrel, we maximize the potential to eliminate static on the target surfaces and provide a good blowoff at the same time. To give a visualization of the performance, check out the video below.
When adding ionization to this airstream, complex shapes can easily have static elimination as they are being conveyed. Take an automotive body for example, as it travels down the assembly line, before paint or primer, they get blown off to ensure any debris from the facility is removed before they are coated. An array of Ion Air Cannons can be installed at a distance from the surface to fit multiple vehicle models and still target the entire surface needed.
Three Gen4 Ion Air Cannons are used to blow off the debris and remove unwanted static charge from a primer vehicle body before painting.
By arranging the blow-offs to utilize the large volume of ambient air entrained and direct the airflow at an angle in which once it hits the surface, it expands in the direction needed to remove the debris it is easy to cover irregular shapes. The setup shown above will utilize 15.5 SCFM per IAC when operated at 80 psig and give a forceful blast to remove any debris on the surface; the total consumption would be 45.5 SCFM at 80 psig to remove all debris from the top surfaces of this vehicle body before it goes into the final paint area. A centrally located 4 port Gen4 Power Supply, model 7961, can simplify cabling and installation while powering all three Ion Air Cannons. To optimize compressed air usage, an Electronic Flow Control can easily be installed to shut the air off whenever a car is not present; adding something like this ionized blowoff station to existing equipment is easier.
If you would like to discuss what the Gen4 Ion Air Cannon kit or any of our point-of-use engineered compressed air products can do for you in your facility, please contact an Application Engineer today.
Vortex Tubes are unique items that use an ordinary supply of compressed air to create two streams of air, one hot and one cold. We can drop the temperature by as much as 129oF (71.1oC) below inlet temperature on the cold end. It can also be raised as much as 195oF (107.9oC) above the inlet temperature on the hot end. And this can be done without any moving parts, motors, or Freon. Compressed air would be the only input. In this blog, I will cover how to adjust the Vortex Tubes and the resulting effects.
The cold air flow and temperature are easily controlled by adjusting a slotted valve located at the hot air outlet. Opening the valve (turning it counterclockwise) reduces the cold air flow rate and lowers the cold air temperature. Closing the valve (turning it clockwise) increases the cold air flow and raises the cold air temperature. So, how does this apply to cooling?
To go a little deeper, we have to consider cold air temperature and cooling capacity. Cooling capacity is the rate at which heat can be extracted. The higher the cooling capacity, the faster the heat is removed. This deals with temperatures and mass air flow. Like stated above, the colder the air temperature that we create with a Vortex Tube, the less cold air is produced. The two are inversely related. So, we have to find a balance between the temperature and cold air flow. You can find this rate by using Equation 1:
Equation 1:
H’ = 1.0746 * Q * (T2 – T1)
H’ – cooling capacity (BTU/hr)
Q – cold air flow (SCFM)
T2 – Final temperature (oF)
T1 – cold air temperature (oF)
With a Vortex Tube, the temperature difference is based on the inlet pressure and Cold Fraction. The Cold Fraction is the amount of compressed air entering the Vortex Tube that will blow out of the cold end. The remaining portion of the air will travel out of the hot end as heated air. We have a chart below that shows the temperature drop on the cold air side and the temperature rise on the hot air side.
EXAIR Vortex Tube Performance Chart
Here’s an example. If we use a model 3240 at two different Cold Fractions, we can see the difference in cooling power. At 100 PSIG (6.9 Bar), the model 3240 will use 40 SCFM (1133 SLPM) of compressed air. If we look at two different Cold Fractions: 20% Cold Fraction and 70% Cold Fraction, we can calculate the cooling capacities by Equation 1. In setting some criteria for our example, we will be using 70oF (21oC) compressed air at 100 PSIG (6.9 Bar). Also, we will have a target temperature of 95oF (35oC).
Example 1: At a 20% Cold Fraction and 100 PSIG, the Vortex Tube will generate a cold air temperature drop of 123oF. So, with a 70 oF inlet air temperature, the cold air temperature will be 70 oF – 123 oF = -53 oF. The amount of cold air at 20% Cold Fraction is 0.2 * 40 SCFM = 8 SCFM. Now that we have this information, we can calculate the cooling capacity.
Example 2: At a 70% Cold Fraction and 100 PSIG, the Vortex Tube will generate a cold air temperature drop of 71oF. So, with a 70 oF inlet air temperature, the cold air temperature will be 70 oF – 71 oF = -1 oF. The amount of cold air at 70% Cold Fraction is 0.7 * 40 SCFM = 28 SCFM. Now that we have this information, we can calculate the cooling capacity.
As you can see, Example 1 will give you a much colder air stream, but the cooling capacity is 56% less than Example 2. Or, in other words, in one hour, the Vortex Tube that is set at 70% Cold Fraction can remove 2,903 BTU of heat from an object. While the same Vortex Tube set at 20% Cold Fraction, which is much colder, will only remove 1,279 BTU of heat.
In the above examples, we used 95oF as the target temperature for our application. If the target temperature changes, then so does the relative cooling power generated by a vortex tube. We take this into account when we are performing calculations to determine which model and setting for cold fraction would be best for your application.
EXAIR offers a wide range of sizes and cooling capacities with our Vortex Tubes for different applications. They can be used to cool parts, set materials, and regulate temperatures in environmental chambers. They provide an instant and reliable flow of cold air at different temperatures. In this blog, I showed the difference between cold temperatures and the effect of cooling capacity. If you have an application that requires cooling, you can contact an Application Engineer at EXAIR, and we will be happy to run through these calculations to help you select the correct model.
