Reinders Industrial developed and supplied adsorption dryer for the pneumatic conveying system at a large milk powder producer, using 100% residual heat from the factory. The only consumption of the drying system is the electric power consumption of the fans and the hot water circulation pump.
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Compressed air must be pre-dried to prevent problems such as sticking and adhesion of hygroscopic products. For this purpose, approx. 7000 m3/h of outside air is sucked in, pre-cooled and dried in a silica-coated drying wheel. The moisture absorbed by the wheel in the “process section” must be released in the “regeneration section”. The moisture is given off with hot air which breaks the attraction between the water molecules and the silica material, releases the moisture from the wheel and can be absorbed by the passing air.
The entire regeneration process runs on residual heat from the compression process using two included stainless steel Shell & Tube heat exchangers in the external compressed air system. Compressed air that has been heated to around 160°C by the compression process heats up the cooling water, so that this water is put to good use in the adsorption dryer. This system reduces the natural gas consumption of the current and outdated dryer by approximately 15 cubic meters per hour, which amounts to almost 25,000 euros per year.
