Adding Refrigerated Drying to an Existing 80 m³/min Air Station

An electronics manufacturer’s compressed air station had been renovated many years earlier but never had an effective drying stage. Undried compressed air carries large amounts of water vapour, which condenses in the distribution network and causes a series of problems:

• corrosion of pipework and equipment;
• failures of pneumatic components;
• ice blockages in winter;
• quality risks in humidity-sensitive processes such as painting and precision instrument work.

Environmental regulations add a further requirement: condensate containing oil and metal ions must be collected and treated to local discharge limits before release. These issues had become a bottleneck for both production stability and the plant’s green-manufacturing goals.

Equipment: SIND ChillDry CD series refrigerated dryer, 100 m³/min capacity, 16.86 kW (CD-100F); pre-cooler; two-stage precision filters; oil-water separator; integration into existing monitoring platform

A complete post-treatment system was designed around a SIND ChillDry CD series refrigerated dryer:

• Dryer sizing: the station’s maximum output is 80 m³/min, so the dryer capacity was set at 100 m³/min to give about 20% margin. The target pressure dew point is ≤ +10 °C, and the dryer’s installed power is 16.86 kW.
• Multi-stage purification: a pre-cooler, two-stage precision filters and an oil-water separator, with targets of oil content ≤ 0.01 ppm and particles ≤ 0.01 µm.
• Minimal disruption: a tee on the existing DN250 main header feeds a DN200 branch to the dryer, and dried air returns to the main network. Most of the work can be done without interrupting supply.
• Monitoring: the dryer is integrated into the plant’s existing compressed-air monitoring platform for remote supervision and data analysis.

The system is designed to deliver:

• Pressure dew point stabilised below +10 °C.
• ISO 8573-1 Class 1.6.1 air quality for particles, water and oil.
• No liquid water or winter ice blockages, and stable pressure at all branches.
• Longer service life for pneumatic equipment and pipework.
• Centralised condensate treatment that meets local discharge standards.