How desiccant air dryers work
Wet air passes directly through the desiccant medium which adsorbs the moisture. The desiccant medium has a finite capacity for adsorbing moisture before it must be dried out, or regenerated. To do this, the tower containing saturated desiccant medium is depressurized and the accumulated water is driven off.
How this happens depends on the type of desiccant dryer:
- Heatless dryers use only compressed air as a purge
- Blower purge dryers use a combination of air from an external blower, heat and minimal compressed air
- Heat of compression dryers use the heat of the compression
