Pressure drop across compressed air filtration

Compressed air quality directly affects production costs. Quality air requires more than an initial investment in filtration equipment: economical operation of the treatment system is also important.

At a food company with the highest air quality requirements, measurements showed pressure drops at several end users, while main-line pressure matched that in the compressor room. One drop was caused by two clogged filters in series, with a combined nominal pressure drop of 395 mbar. Differential pressure analysis revealed an actual drop of almost 1.5 bar due to clogging.

We proposed replacing the existing filter cascade with a new-generation UD+ filter, offering the same filtration performance with a nominal pressure drop of 450 mbar.

With continuous operation of 8,400 hours per year, a flow of 50 l/s and a price of CZK 0.5/Nm3, producing the air passing through the filters costs CZK 756,000. The roughly 1 bar difference between the existing and proposed pressure drops would allow a 7% reduction in filtered air production costs by lowering average pressure.