Atlas Copco introduces Cerades™, the first ever solid desiccant, transforming air dryer design and performance

CD 20+-335+ to be launched worldwide as the first Cerades™ dryer

May 18, 2020 – Antwerp, Belgium – Some inventions change everything. Cerades™, a new desiccant for compressed air dryers developed and patented by Atlas Copco, is such a revolutionary innovation. The first ever solid, ceramic desiccant, Cerades™ gives compressed air operators significantly better air quality, lower energy and service costs, and health and environmental benefits.

Until now, desiccant in air dryers has always consisted of loose beads made of activated alumina, molecular sieves or silica gel. Cerades™ is the first ever solid, ceramic desiccant. It is the result of years of research and development by Atlas Copco with the goal of radically improving desiccant dryer design, efficiency and performance. Up to 80% of the cost of a compressed air system is related to actually using it. That is why Cerades™ was designed to deliver significant savings. Compressed air flows through the straight structured tubes, as opposed to pushing its way through thousands of separate beads. The Cerades™ no-resistance flow means the air experiences a smaller pressure drop as it travels through the dryer, significantly lowering the energy cost of operating a dryer.

Thanks to its structural integrity and long lifetime, Cerades™ offers a number of operational and environmental benefits to customers. Traditional desiccant decays over time as it bounces around during cycling. This can compromise air quality and necessitate more frequent maintenance. In addition, as loose desiccant decomposes, it releases a fine dust into the air system, which requires extra filtration and maintenance – and additional service costs. This dust is also a health and environmental hazard, as it circulates in the ambient air during desiccant replacement. Cerades™ eliminates this dust problem to give users ISO 8573-1:2010 Class 2 air purity for particles without any extra filtration.

Cerades™ is vibration-resistant and can be mounted horizontally for trouble-free installation and continuous operation in rigorous applications, for example in the transportation industry.

“Cerades™ really is a quantum leap in compressed air performance,” says Nuri Köse, Vice President of Marketing of the Atlas Copco Industrial Air division. “It outperforms traditional desiccant on every level. It even allows us to make dryers more compact as ceramic desiccant can handle a higher airflow. It simply is an important all-round improvement.”

The new CD 20⁺-335⁺, available now worldwide, is the first Cerades™ dryer. In addition to its Cerades™ benefits, the CD⁺ is an extremely powerful, efficient, reliable and quiet dryer.

Whereas most dryers are only built to work at 70% to 80%, the CD⁺ can operate continuously with 100% airflow.

The CD 20⁺-335⁺ offers a standard pressure dew point of -20°C/-5°F, -40°C/-40°F, -70°C/-100°F. However, users can adjust the dew point to best meet the needs of their specific applications.

The new CD⁺ series comes with the advanced Elektronikon® Touch. The controller allows users to easily maximize dryer performance and efficiency, even more so in combination with SMARTLINK remote monitoring.