Air/Water compressor

[whph]

Sorry if this seems like a stupid question, but no one here at work seems to know. is there a compressor avalible that will compress both air and water?

 

[Rich2001]

Water vapor - yes, however, liquid water is essentially noncompressible. Trying to compress an noncompressible liquid results in compressor failure.

Vita sine litteris mors est.

 

[rzrbk]

If you are talking about SMALL amounts of water there are types of compressors which can handle it better than others, (centrifugal or Screw type) but liquid entrainment is still considered a bad thing with these types. Vendor will need details on type, amount, etc. of liquid entrainment. Stay away from recip type.

With any significant amount of liquid you will be better off separating the air and water with a knockout drum, separator, and/or a coalescer, depending on conditions, before sending the air to a compressor.

 

[whph]

Thanks for that, it would only be a small amount of water, but i think we are looking at a whole other of doing it now.

 

[TD2K]

Liquid ring compressors will handle liquids with the inlet gas though the incoming liquids will remain with the circulating sealing fluid.

 

[zdas04]

TD2K,
Your last point is really important. Often, the sealing liquid will react badly with the entrained water and form an emulsion that can smoke the compressor. If you have a lot of liquid that you just can't separate, I like centrifuguls or eductors/ejectors better than screws or liquid rings because the later two are positive displacement and it doesn't take much liquid accumulation to do ugly things.

David

 

[quark]

Not all liquid ring pumps. Water ring vacuum pumps(or compressor) do pump out water along with evacuated gases through the discharge.