Evaluation of compressed air adsorption dryer with three different heat regeneration modes

Abstract

In this article, adsorption rate of different desiccants such as Activated alumina, Molecular sieve, and Activated carbon for producing dry air is proposed.This paper emphasized thoroughly the effect of different inlet conditions like mass of desiccant, type of desiccant and mass flow rate of air on adsorption rate by the desiccant when the atmospheric air after passing through the desiccant bed under the climatic conditions of Coimbatore.Taguchi’s method was used for statistical analysis of experiments.Taguchi’s design of experiments approach L9 orthogonal array (OA) was selected and optimum level of parameters was chosen by larger-the-better signal-to noise (S/N) ratio for this investigation. Also Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was utilized to found the most important parameter in finalizing adsorption rate and develope the empirical model. Finally an optimum level of parameters was used in confirmation test and confirmed that the predicted values in both methods ie., regression model and the equation of predicted S/N ratio were close enough themselves and also in experimental values. Statistical results (at a 95% confidence level) show that the desiccant mass (A), desiccant type (B) and mass flow rate of air (C) affect the adsorption rate by 25.21%, 34.74 % and 38.31% in the air dehumidification process, respectively. Comparison of the performances showed that at high mass flow rate of air the adsorption rate was larger for Activated alumina than that at low flow rate than Molecular sieve and activated carbon.