Tag: desiccant

Compressed Air Pipe

The Power of Deliquescent Driers in Compressed Air Systems

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

In industrial manufacturing, compressed air is the unsung hero powering tools, machinery, and processes across manufacturing, painting, blasting, and beyond. But here’s the catch: moisture. That sneaky water vapor lurking in your compressed air lines can wreak havoc, causing corrosion, freezing, and contaminating sensitive equipment. Deliquescent driers are low-maintenance systems designed to tackle humidity head-on. In this blog, we’ll dive into what makes these driers tick, their pros and cons.

What Are Deliquescent Driers, Anyway?

Picture this: a simple tank packed with hygroscopic (water-loving) salt tablets that dissolve into a brine as they absorb moisture from compressed air. That’s the 1000-foot view of a deliquescent drier. Unlike refrigerated or desiccant dryers that rely on complex refrigeration cycles or regeneration, deliquescent driers use chemistry to do the heavy lifting. The process is elegantly straightforward:

  • Incoming air enters the bottom of the vessel, preheated from compression and loaded with water vapor.
  • It flows upward through a bed of deliquescent desiccant—typically formulated from salts like calcium chloride, lithium chloride, or potassium chloride.
  • The salts “deliquesce” (hence the name), attracting and dissolving water vapor into a liquid brine that collects at the base.
  • Dry air exits the top, with a pressure dew point suppressed by about 15-20°F below the inlet temperature, depending on conditions.

No electricity, no moving parts—just pure, passive drying. These driers have been a staple since the 1940s, especially in rugged settings like petrochemical plants, outdoor blasting ops, or mobile equipment where reliability is the largest concern.

Why Choose Deliquescent Driers? The Pros (and a Few Cons)

Deliquescent driers aren’t for every scenario, but when they fit, they’re a game-changer. Let’s break it down:

The Advantages:

  • Zero Energy Consumption: No power required means lower operating costs and no electrical hazards in wet or explosive environments. Ideal for remote sites or intermittent use.
  • Rugged and Portable: Mount them indoors or outdoors—they thrive in extreme temps, even subzero conditions, with the right setup. Perfect for mobile contractors in painting or abrasive blasting.
  • Low Maintenance: Just drain the brine every 8-hour shift and top up the desiccant a few times a year. A sight glass lets you monitor levels at a glance.
  • Cost-Effective Upfront: Cheaper to buy and install than high-tech alternatives, with no filters or separators to fuss over.

The Drawbacks:

  • Limited Dew Point Control: They suppress dew point by a fixed amount (e.g., 20°F), so hot inlet air means warmer outlet air—fine for many apps but not ultra-dry needs.
  • Corrosion Potential: The brine is salty and corrosive, so vessels need robust coatings, and downstream lines require after filters to catch salt carryover.
  • Pre-filtration Required: Oil from compressors can foul the desiccant, so a coalescing pre-filter is a must.

In short, if you’re blasting in humid conditions, painting in the field, or running air tools in cold weather, deliquescent driers deliver freeze-proof, reliable performance without the fuss.

At EXAIR Corporation, we’re keen on compressed air efficiency. The attention to detail we pay to our products – from design, to manufacturing & assembly, to availability, and right on through to technical support – bears out our commitment to helping you get the most out of your compressed air system. If you’ve got questions, Give me a call.

Jordan Shouse, CCASS

Application Engineer

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Image courtesy of Brian S. Elliott, Wikimedia Commons Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License

Intelligent Compressed Air: What You Need To Know About Deliquescent Dryers

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

Moisture free air is a “must” for industrial use, for a number of reasons:

  • An awful lot of distribution systems incorporate iron pipe. It’s inexpensive, readily available, easy to work with, rated for pressure, and has a long history of successful installations. Iron pipe will also oxidize (make rust) in the presence of water:
Here’s what we find a lot of the time inside a Reversible Drum Vac that’s been sent in for refurbishment because it’s not drawing effective vacuum anymore.
  • Regardless of what your distribution lines and components are made of, water droplets can erode them. Compressed air itself is a gas; it follows the curves in elbows, and flows around valve discs & regulator diaphragms. Water droplets, on the other hand, run full speed INTO those things, often at high velocity. This eventually causes pitting, which is bad enough…those pits, though, are little pockets for salts, acids, or alkalines to effect their destructive little chemical reactions.
  • When used for blow off applications, anything in your compressed air will get on anything you’re blowing off. If the intent is to remove moisture from a surface, moisture in your compressed air supply decidedly works against your goal.
  • Water can freeze as it is carried along with air flow through orifices. This can quickly block the flow of air. The US Navy lost a submarine, USS Thresher (SSN-593) and all hands in 1963. A number of factors contributed to the sinking, but a significant one was that compressed air being blown into the ballast tanks (to create negative buoyancy) had higher than permissible moisture content, and froze in orifice plates in the lines. The ballast tanks stayed full of water, and 129 sailors & shipyard personnel died as the boat passed crush depth.

There are a number of types of air dryers that are commonly fitted to industrial air compressors to take care of moisture problems. The least expensive one of these is the Single Tower Deliquescent Dryer. Here’s how they work:

Deliquescent dryer: how it works (1)
  • Incoming compressed air enters near the base, where a form of mechanical separation occurs…the air flows back & forth, around trays of desiccant.  The simple act of changing direction causes some of the water to just fall out and collect in the bottom.
  • The air then flows upwards through the desiccant bed. The desiccant in a deliquescent dryer absorbs moisture (as opposed to the adsorption that occurs in a regenerative desiccant dryer) until they get so wet, they dissolve.
  • After the desiccant does its job, moisture free air flows out the top, and gets on with it’s work.

In addition to the low price tag, other things to like about them are:

  • Low pressure drop.
  • No moving parts or electrical components.
  • Can be used outdoors, and in hazardous, mobile, dirty, or corrosive environments.

Of course, there are things to NOT like about them as well:

  • Limited suppression of dew point – because they are drying the air to a specific relative humidity, as opposed to a specific dew point, the attainable dew point is dependent on the incoming air temperature, the chemical composition of the desiccant salt, and the ambient temperature where it’s installed. Unless you use some sort of specialty salt desiccant, the typical dew point is only 20-25ºF lower than the air inlet temperature.
  • Desiccant carryover – speaking of those specialty salts, they’re even more corrosive than the basic sodium chloride that’s often used. Any carryover will wreak havoc on your distribution system and air operated devices.

Deliquescent dryers’ particular set of “pros and cons” presents challenges for their use in industrial settings, for sure. But if the primary concern is preventing pipes from freezing up, then their low cost, low maintenance, and simplicity make them a great choice.

At EXAIR Corporation, we’re keen on compressed air efficiency. The attention to detail we pay to our products – from design, to manufacturing & assembly, to availability, and right on through to technical support – bears out our commitment to helping you get the most out of your compressed air system. If you’ve got questions, we can talk about this all day long…and most of the time, we do. Give me a call.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
EXAIR Corporation
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Image courtesy of Brian S. Elliott, Wikimedia Commons Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License

Compressed Air Supply Side: What Is A Deliquescent Dryer, And When Would You Use One?

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

As we head in to the colder months here in Ohio, I will soon be getting my humidifier out of the basement and set up in my bedroom. The dry air that accompanies the onset of winter chaps my lips, cracks the skin on my knuckles, affects my nasal passages, and oftentimes makes me wake up with a sore throat…something I definitely don’t want to happen in the middle of a pandemic! So I put some water vapor in my home’s air, on purpose, to take care of all of that.

Moisture in an industrial compressed air system, however, isn’t good for anything.  It’ll corrode your pipes, get rust in your pneumatic tools, motors, and cylinders, and spit out of your blow off devices, all over whatever you’re using your air to blow off.  Depending on the type of compressor, where, and how, it’s used, there are different types of dryers.  Today, dear reader, we’re taking a look at one of the most basic moisture removal systems: the deliquescent dryer.  The principle of operation is as follows:

  • Deliquescent dryer: how it works (1)
    Incoming compressed air enters near the base, where a form of mechanical separation occurs…the air flows back & forth, around trays of desiccant.  The simple act of changing direction causes a certain amount of free liquid to just fall out and collect in the bottom.
  • The air then flows upwards through the desiccant bed. The desiccant in a deliquescent dryer absorbs moisture (as opposed to the adsorption that occurs in a regenerative desiccant dryer) until they get so wet, they dissolve.
  • The desiccant level has to be monitored (commonly via a sight glass) so it can be replaced as it’s consumed.
  • After the desiccant does its job, moisture free air flows out the top, and gets on with it’s work.

Deliquescent dryers, owing to their simplicity, are the least expensive air dryers.  They have no moving parts and no electricity, so the only maintenance involved is replacing the desiccant media as it’s consumed.  This makes them especially popular in mobile/on-site applications involving portable or tow-behind, engine driven compressors, since they don’t need power to run.

There are several disadvantages, also owing to their simplicity:

  • The deliquescent media has to be periodically replenished.  If you don’t stay on top of it, you can find yourself shut down while you go back to the shop to get a big bag of salt.  That’s time your boss can’t charge your customer for.  Also, the cost of the new media is a continual operating cost of the dryer…something you don’t have to account for with the regenerative desiccant models.
  • Disposal of the waste media can be a concern…you definitely want to check your local environmental regulations before dumping it in the garbage.  Your boss won’t like talking to the EPA about THAT either.
  • They have to be equipped with a particulate filter on the discharge to keep the deliquescent media (which, being a salt, is corrosive in nature) from entering your system.  That would be even worse than water moisture…which this is there to prevent in the first place.
  • They don’t get near as low of a dewpoint as other dryers – the best you can hope for is 20°F to 30°F.  Which is fine, given the above mentioned nature of applications where these are commonly used.  You just wouldn’t want to use them to supply a product like an EXAIR Vortex Tube…which can turn that in to -40°F cold air, causing the water vapor to turn to liquid, and then to ice.  In a hurry.

EXAIR Corporation is in the business of helping you get the most out of your compressed air.  If you want to learn more, please follow our blog.  If you have specific questions, give me a call.

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
EXAIR Corporation
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(1) – Deliquescent Dryer Image: VMAC Air Innovated: The Deliquescent Dryer – https://www.vmacair.com/blog/the-deliquescent-dryer/

Desiccant Dryers: Heat of Compression Type

Published on by John BallLeave a comment

Desiccant Dryers

Desiccant dryers come in different forms.  They are designed for water sensitive areas as they can reach a dew point to -40oF (-40oC) and below.  That means that water will not condense in the compressed air lines until the temperature is below the dew point.  The desiccant inside these units will adsorb the water vapor as compressed air passes through a bed.  Once the desiccant bed is full of water vapor, it will have to be regenerated.

A typical system will use two towers that will switch back and forth.  One tower is used to remove the water from the compressed air system, and the other is used to regenerate the desiccant.  In this blog, I will cover how the desiccant can be regenerated with a Heat of Compression (HOC) type of desiccant dryer.

An air compressor is not an efficient device.  For every eight horsepower of energy to make compressed air, only one horsepower is used as work.  And for compressed air drying, the type of desiccant dryer is important.  Regeneration of desiccant beads can be done either with non-heated or heated means. The non-heated, or heatless version will use 15% of your compressed air to purge through the regeneration tank.  The air escapes into the atmosphere with the water vapor and is wasted.

With the heated type desiccant dryers, they come in three different categories.  One type uses a heater to increase the temperature of the compressed air. At the elevated temperature, the purge requirement can be reduced to 7% for the regeneration of desiccant.  But, still compressed air is wasted.  To cut the purge to zero, a blower-type heated desiccant dryer can be used.  Instead of heating the compressed air, the blower will push ambient air through a heater to regenerate the desiccant bed.  But can you get more efficient than that?

Well, what if you can remove the heater and the blower?  The heat of compression type of desiccant dryers can do that.  Remember above when I mentioned that “for every eight horsepower of energy to make compressed air, only one horsepower is used as work”.  The seven horsepower of energy that is lost is given off as heat.  The HOC dryer uses that heat to regenerate the desiccant bed.  So, the overall energy is reduced even further.  There is a restriction when using this type of dryer.  The air compressor will have to be oil-free because oil will coat the desiccant beads and stop the adsorption rate.

When the air is compressed, heat is generated.  This heated air can reach around 200oF (93oC).  With the higher temperature, air can hold more water vapor.  As the heated air passes through the desiccant bed that needs to be regenerated, the water vapor is picked up from the desiccant beads.  The saturated air would then pass through an aftercooler.  The aftercooler reduces the air temperature below 100oF (38oC) which will cause the water to drop out.  From the aftercooler, the air will then pass through the desiccant bed in the drying tower.   When the cycle time is reached, the towers will switch to regenerate the second tower.

Line Vacs can convey many things.

With these types of dryers, the desiccant beads will start to degrade from regeneration.  To help replace them, EXAIR offers a Line Vac.  Instead of climbing a ladder with many bags of desiccant, the Line Vac can do this safely and ergonomically.   EXAIR Line Vacs use a small amount of compressed air to generate a powerful vacuum by a Venturi effect.  The unique design of the generators creates a high velocity of air to create a low pressure on one side and a powerful thrust on the other.  The Line Vac can pick up and move solid material vertically up to 20 feet (6 meters).  You can watch a video on the operation of a Line Vac HERE.  The EXAIR Line Vacs are very quiet, compact, rugged, and powerful.  To replace the desiccant, it can do it quickly and safely.

If you need to convey solid materials in a quick and easy way, an EXAIR Line Vac could be a solution for you.  We have them in a variety of materials and designs to match your application.  Ergonomically, they can save the back-wrenching labor of picking up bags, climbing stairs, and dumping material into towers.  If you want to know if the EXAIR Line Vac could work for you, an Application Engineer at EXAIR can help to recommend the best unit for you.

John Ball
Application Engineer

Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb

 

Photo: Heated Desiccant Dryer by Compressor1.  Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivs 2.0 Generic