Patent ID: 6858067

Claim:
A filtration vessel for use with a rotary screw compressor which receives a compressed liquid/gas mixture from the compressor and which creates an essentially liquid free flow leaving the compressor, the vessel comprising: a vertically arranged vessel housing having an inlet; a vortex knock out region located within a lower region of the vessel housing and communicating with the vessel inlet, the vortex knock out region utilizing uniform circular motion to impose a centrifugal force on gas and liquid fluids entering the vessel housing, the centrifugal force acting to separate relatively heavier fluids from relatively lighter fluids; a vertically arranged down-comer pipe centrally located within the vessel housing; a coalescer element region located above the vortex knock out region within the vessel housing containing a plurality of coalescer filter elements and communicating with the vortex knock out region by means of the down-comer pipe for receiving the relatively lighter fluids separated in the vortex knock out region and for separating any entrained liquids remaining in the fluids; an outlet from the vessel housing for receiving and discharging the filtered fluids; wherein the coalescer filter elements each comprise a porous media, each element being housed within a rigid, vertical housing; and wherein each rigid, vertical housing is a metal cylinder having a length and an internal diameter for receiving a porous coalescer element, the metal cylinders having louvered openings along the entire lengths thereof, whereby each of the coalescer element housings act as a gas flow conditioner by stabilizing the gas flow around the coalescer element contained therein.