Desiccant Air Dryers
Water vapour is removed from compressed air by passing it over an adsorbent desiccant material. As the air contacts the adsorbent material, water vapour transfers from the wet air to the dry desiccant, however, adsorbent materials have a fixed adsorption capacity and once this capacity is reached, they must be regenerated or replaced. Therefore, to provide a continuous supply of clean, dry compressed air, adsorbent dryers utilise two chambers of desiccant material and at any one time, whilst one chamber is on-line, drying the incoming compressed air, the other is either off-line, being regenerated or is re- pressurised, ready to come on-line.