Compressed air is a very important energy source. Safe, powerful, and reliable. It is used in many industrial fields such as electronics, integrated circuits, semiconductors, chips, automobiles, medicine, chemistry, metallurgy, and textiles. However, untreated compressed air contains many contaminants that affect production.

Air pollutants are mainly solid particles, oil and water. If not removed, they mix to form a highly corrosive acidic sludge that rapidly erodes process equipment, reduces product quality, and causes disruption and paralysis of production flow.

There are three main sources of solid particles.

Worn compressor moving parts and piping.

Oil is very important to compressors because it acts as a seal, lubricates and cools, and the atmosphere also contains oil. Therefore, the air at the compressor outlet contains a large amount of oil.

The amount of water vapor in the air is very high and is directly related to temperature. Many products and devices are very sensitive to water during manufacture and use. Filters are therefore an important part of compressed air aftertreatment equipment as they are easy to use and can quickly and effectively solve quality problems in compressed air back-end air sources. However, filters also have a small limitation. Filters have an expiration date. When the time comes, the filter element will need to be replaced, increasing the number of consumables. Some filters have a limited operating range. The choice of compressed air aftertreatment equipment should not only be limited to filters, but also in combination with aftertreatment refrigeration dryers, suction dryers, degreasers, etc. to achieve the best cost-effectiveness and economy. 

A compressed air filter is a device that filters and purifies compressed air. In general, we are talking about precision filters with high efficiency in pipelines of compressed air systems.

There are two main types of contaminants in compressed air. First, 80% of air pollutants drawn into compressors are less than 2 μm in diameter. It becomes an aerosol of 0.01 to 0.8 μm.

Contamination can cause serious problems in compressed air systems. Since air is compressible, particles of contaminants are also drawn into the compressor during the compression process. In a 0.8 MPa compressed air system, the amount of contaminants in the compression system is amplified eightfold. At present, these contaminant particles can seriously damage products manufactured with compressed air. These contaminants are pipe dust, wear particles, soot from the combustion process, and microorganisms. They can be broadly classified into the following three categories.

Large dust of 10 μm or more. Particulate matter, particle size is 10-1 μm. The finest dust with particles less than 1 μm.

Filters can remove most liquids and solid particles, with particle sizes generally greater than 1 μm. Efficient precision filters must be used to remove very small solid particles and oil-water aerosols. Filters are mainly used to filter solid particles and impurities in compressed air, and have a certain barrier effect against liquid water and oil, changing the structure and filtration method of traditional filters. Filtration efficiency reaches 99.99%. 

Lingyu coalescing compressed air filter for moisture removal