Refrigerant air dryer. Compressed air exits your compressor 100% saturated. As it cools, moisture condenses, which can damage your air system and cause system failures, leading to production downtime and costly repairs. Refrigerated air dryers operate with a similar principle to domestic refrigerators or home air conditioning systems. The compressed air is cooled in an air-to-refrigerant heat exchanger to about 35°F, a temperature where the moisture condenses and is drained off. Dry air protects your investment in pneumatic tools, instruments and piping from moisture that can foul mechanisms, skew instrument readings, and cause corrosion and leaks. It also ensures product quality to protect your company’s reputation. Atlas Copco’s FD VSD dryers remove moisture from compressed air before it enters the air network. Filters and separators can remove liquid moisture droplets from the air flow, but they can’t remove water vapor. An FD VSD dryer can remove water vapor according ISO 8573-1 Class 4 purity. In the first stage, compressed air enters the dryer and passes through an air to air heat exchanger, which precools the incoming air. In the second stage, compressed air passes through an air to refrigerant heat exchanger to reduce the compressed air dewpoint to +3°C / +37°F. Water vapor that was in the air condenses into liquid, which is trapped and removed. The dry air is then warmed up in the air to air heat exchanger to reduce its relative humidity and prevent condensate from forming in downstream piping.
