Compressed air equipment supplier Artic Driers International’s Sahara Series heatless twin-tower absorption air dryers are well suited to industrial processes including automotive manufacturing.

Compressed air dryers are designed to separate water vapour or dehumidify air from the industrial process, drawing in humid air, compressing it, raising the air temperature, and then cooling the air while condensing water vapour out of the unit.

Sahara dryers are all fitted with an HDC-1 control box that enables trained staff to adjust the drying and repressurisation times whenever necessary. The HCD-1 displays a countdown time on the fascia panel – which includes a light-emitting diode display that always shows the valve positions –allowing staff to monitor the dryer’s status within its cycle. The controller is capable of being actuated to start and stop the dryer in unison with a compressor start-stop sequence. In the event of a power outage, the controller memorises its status cycle and when power is restored, it automatically restarts accordingly.

The HCD-1 has a 4.20 mA output signal capability, allowing plant computer systems to monitor the dewpoint status and trigger corrective actions should the dryer experience an incident.

The controller has a Dewpoint Control function that can activate a tower changeover when a target dewpoint switching level is reached. The controller uses a SUTO iTEC dewpoint probe to reduce expensive purge air losses.

The Suto range has a variety of optional extras that can be added to any of the Sahara air dryers, such as pressure monitoring, temperature probes, main flow monitoring as well as purge air flows and the S305 standalone dewpoint monitoring c/w remote and local dew point display.

These items may also be coupled to a local S331 data logger system, which can be integrated with a building management system or supervisory control and data acquisition system. Artic Driers International is the Southern Africa representative for SUTO iTEC. It also provides purpose-built skid dryer sets for mobile operations for oil-free and lubricated compressors.

Smaller variants have tough, compact designs with inlet and outlet air being controlled by two South African-patented free floating shuttle valves on all dryers up to and including 18 m³/min. The changeover for desorption to online drying is activated by two simple angle seat valves. These are “fired” by two pneumatic, normally closed, valves through using the HCD1 timer system. The SA97 to SA1560 models may be transported on a pallet on the dryer’s ‘wing back frames’, which helps prevent transport damage.

Larger units are mounted on a “Low Ride” heavy-duty frame, which is equipped with forklift slots and lifting shackles with the frame structure allowing for dryers to be transported in a standard shipping container in the vertical position. Dryers that have a flow above 18 m³/min have a single shuttle mounted in the inlet pipe system, with two double-door, non-return valves on the outlet pipework. The changeover for desorption to online drying is activated by two simple angle seat valves.

All dryers are designed to comply with local South African National Standard directives and the pressure vessels are designed for 13 bar operation.