Heated Compressed Air

RedTaco4x4

Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2005
Location
Durham, NC
I'm looking for a way to heat a compressed air source up. Where I work uses compressed air which is run throughout the facility by copper pipe (running at only ~30 psi). For some procedures, having the compressed air heated up to about ~175 degrees F would make things so much easier. Are there any compressed air heaters out there? Something that would be fairly small so it doesn't take up a bunch of room. Or any other ideas for heating up compressed air?
 
Heating compressed air will increase the pressure. When you release the pressure the expanding air will cool very quickly as it comes out . There are a lot of things to consider before trying this.
 
Yea, it's actually heated when it's compressed. That's a byproduct of compression. When it is released and goes back to atmospheric pressure it gets really cold.
 
They are out there. Do a search for 'compressed air heater' on Google. The low temperature may or may not be do-able with commercially available heaters. I looked at a couple that came up on the search and the temps looked quite a bit higher than 175F. I've actually designed one but for much higher temperatures and much larger flows than you're concerned about or that are commercially available.

What kind of flow rate are you talking? Does it vary? How tightly do you want to control the temp or do you need it controlled at all (i.e. => 175F is OK or 175F +/- .5F)? All of this makes a big difference.

For small heat input requirements, you could heat the outside of the pipe prior to discharge. The limited surface area of the pipe wall is what restricts it to small heat input. Large heat requirements would drive you towards a heater contained is a container or pressure vessel.
 
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