Portable compressor freezing lines up

by noel brady
(cavan Ireland Europe)

We are having problems with our compressed air frezzing in our tools for pumping insulation, we have a 106cfm at 7 bar compressor running in a truck body, the air temp is 3 degrees and the hose lenght is 40m.At the end is a PCL coupling which is freezing.We have two inline filters which remove the moisture aparently.Is there something else we can do, warm the air? Add antifreeze in the oiler?The equipement is using 2 x 40 cfm. We have to keep dipping the tools into warm water to unfreeze them.

technical@airpacks.ie





Bill says...

Noel, the lines are freezing as you are pumping hot, moist, water vapour-laden compressed air into lines that are running through cold temps.

The water vapour in the lines is condensing, and freezing. You need to strip the water vapour out of the air, not just the free water, from the compressed air stream before it gets to the cold lines.

How much money do you want to spend on desiccant air dryers?

Good luck.

Bill







Comments for
Portable compressor freezing lines up

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Jan 02, 2010
 bill
by: Anonymous

Hi Bill,

We put on 2 large expensive filters costing 289 euro each, they brought it to 0.05 and 0.01 micron which we expected to be good enough,It seems the hand tools are going to have to be coated to prevent them freezing or add your filter if I can find one,not much luck on the net,I am getting some in teflon coated but the valve will probably still freeze up,We pump insulation through the hand tools which works in a venturi effect with the compressed air creating the venturi effect.

______________

Your filters are designed to remove fine debris and free water, not water vapour.

In order to remove water vapour, so there is no condensation of water in sub-zero lines, is to use a desiccant dryer to remove all water vapor below the DEW point of the lines through which the compressed air will travel.

Try using desiccant dryer in a search engine to find a source.

Bill
Dec 30, 2009
 Desiccant air dryers
by: noel brady

Hi Bill,

We have two filters on the Air line before it goes into the 40m coils,these take out a lot of the moisture as you cannot get any smaller filters.We are fitting lubricators on one and putting in antifreeze in instead of oil to see if it helps.We have 200 euro to spend approx on each truck.How much are the dryers you talk about costing?
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Noel, you don't say what filters you have, but I'm guessing they are general purpose type units with perhaps a 40 micron element followed by one with a 5 micron element? These filters will take our free water, but they don't take out water vapour. That's what you need. The air exiting the warm space to the cold space must have a DEW point below the ambient outside temperature, or condensation will develop, and then freeze.

I don't sell compressed air components from this website, though I'm sure some of my advertisers do. Do a web search for desiccant dryers, find a local source, and ask them to recommend what you need.

Cheers,

Bill

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