If you operate an industry where oil combination is not acceptable, you want to invest in an oilless air compressor. Most of the time, you find these compressors in industries such as hospitals, food and beverage, and pharmaceutical. It, therefore, means that clean air can be necessary for safer production, compliance, health assurance, and many more. Many organisations are becoming concerned about how they can contribute to reducing carbon emissions, which necessitates oil-free air compressor investment.
With an oil-free investment, you would be preventing environmental pollution to ensure a greener Earth in the following ways:
1. Oil-free compressor eliminates condensate treatment
The byproduct of compressing air is condensate, which could be prevented when you operate an oil-less compressor. The condensate will become contaminated with oil as you use a lubricated compressor. And when it goes into the city drain, it affects every living thing, including plants and animals.
Before you dispose of it, it is advisable to separate the oil from water using an oil/water separation system. The separated oil can go to a specified facility specified in your jurisdiction for recycling.
2. An opportunity to get rid of contamination
The end product of compressed air can contaminate your production, which becomes bad for consumption. The only way to avoid possible contamination is to avoid oil in your airstream. Your competitor may be using class 0 air to prevent contamination risk, including oil filter breakthrough from post-filtration.
Contamination would typically reduce the quality of the product, cause annoying downtimes and your company may be faced with the problem of recalling products. Since your products are more likely to be harmful to consumer health, it affects your brand reputation.
3. Fresher air quality
You can invest in oilless compressed air to improve ventilation. Unlike the oiled counterpart, an oil-free compressor means you are not emitting hazardous substances into the atmosphere.
4. Reduced energy waste
Experts believe that an oilless compressor reduces the chance of air leaks and energy waste. You could invest in environmental sustainability when you invest in an oilless compressed air to ensure peace of mind while operations are ongoing. Nevertheless, air compressor preventive maintenance will still be essential to sustain the operational life of your machines. Waste reduction is a key part of lean manufacturing.
5. Less environmental noise
Noise is another major pollutant you want to eliminate from your production facility. Most oil compressors have larger decibels compared to oilless air compressors, meaning louder operations that do not only impair hearing but deprive customers, employees, managers, and contractors of the experience of serenity
Most oil-free compressors use direct drive, dual-piston pumps, and advanced noise-reducing technologies to reduce loudness to the barest minimum.
What businesses gain from preventive oilless air compressor maintenance
- The end of downtimes. Downtimes are not fun, to put it mildly, ruining the organisation’s production schedule and causing client delays that damage their service experience. Oilless compressors give you an edge over oiled compressors in terms of how often you make repairs.
- Cost-saving. Preventive air maintenance can save your company from incurring unnecessary expenses on sudden machine breakdown, worn-out parts that affect other components, etc. Preventative maintenance means your company will detect and fix problems such as air leaks beforehand.
- Environmentally friendly. Broken air compressors, including air leak problems, result in energy waste, which could be costing an average of 25% of a compressor’s output. When your compressed air is not properly maintained, the leak rate increases by 20% of the total production capacity.
- Safety and compliance. A malfunctioning oilless air compressor can develop into a threatening risk that can injure employees during operations. Moreover, a flawed compressor system does not meet production standards, which can cost your business should an investigation take place in your company.
How to check your oil-free compressor for an air leak
Automatically
- Using ultrasonic leak detection. Technology makes air leak detection even simpler today. If you do not want to use manual methods, given their unreliability, ultrasonic leak detection lets you detect air leaks following industry standards.
An ultrasonic leak detection device is portable and flexible. For example, air leak detection can take place during business hours without distracting activities.
Manually
- Inspecting physically for air leak. If you are not using an ultrasonic leak detection device, you can find air leaks manually by examining the machines physically. Unfortunately, this method is not reliable and is far from effective if you conduct the inspection during business hours.
The common way to detect an air leak physically is to mix water and liquid soap and apply it to the pipes. Look for bubbles along the spot where you applied the soapy water. The spots with bubbles are the areas with leaks.
- Hearing. Another way to detect an air leak in the oil-free air compressor is to use your ears. It is the toughest air leak detection solution and is far from being reliable. You do not use this method during business hours or when any noisy device or machine is running nearby.