Corporate Buyers Guide

What is an oil water separator? They are devices that separate oil from the water that air dryers condense out, called condensate. As the air is being compressed, contaminants from the atmosphere are drawn into the compressor. Also, there is often oil from the compressor itself mixed in the compressed air. These contaminants can harm your equipment and need to be removed, but they don’t just disappear. After they are removed by the air dryer, the condensate with these contaminants needs to be disposed. The contaminants need to be removed first and disposed separately. An oil water separator removes these contaminants from the condensate allowing separate disposal.

Why would you want one? In short, it makes it far more economical to dispose of the condensate. If the amount of oil in the condensate is low enough, it can be disposed in a municipal sewer. The condensate, before processing, can be up to 5% oil which is more than can be disposed in a sewer. The oil water separator removes enough of the oily contaminants from the condensate that it can be disposed in the sewer. All that then remains, is a much smaller amount oily residue to be disposed in a proper manner. Giving you less waste that needs to be disposed in a costly manner thus saving you money.

Let’s start with what is a desiccant air dryer, then move on to why you would want one. A desiccant air dryer uses desiccant to dry the air. Desiccant is a group of materials that adsorb moisture. The desiccant needs to be regularly desorbed, that is have the moisture removed from it. This is called regeneration. Most desiccant air dryers have two pressure vessels, one for drying air and the other for regeneration. They switch between the two so compressed air is always available. There are two sets of options for desiccant air dryers, either they use some of the compressed air from your compressed air system or they use a blower to force air over the desiccant for regeneration and they can either be heated or not.

Now, onto why a desiccant air dryer? They, like the refrigerant air dryers, have all the benefits of being an air dryer that were discussed before. In short, they reduce costs by removing moisture from compressed air. Moisture in the compressed air system can cause much damage to your compressed air system and equipment that uses compressed air. Desiccant air dryers are more expensive than refrigerant air dryers, but can get the air much dryer. So, if your equipment is more sensitive to moisture, then you may want a desiccant air dryer rather than a refrigerant air dryer. As for the different types, blowers use more electricity, but do not use any of your compressed air; and heated regeneration uses more electricity, but desorbs the desiccant faster.