Clean compressed air is a sound investment

In the food and beverage industries, the quality of compressed air must be absolute as the air often comes into direct contact with food products and production equipment. However, many of the factors affecting quality often receive little attention.

Compressed air is a necessity for many processes of the food and beverage industries. It is used to power mechanical machinery but also for cutting, drying and cooling.

Every compressed air system has ten different types of contaminants or impurities that come from four sources:

• Ambient air
• Compressors
• Tanks
• Pipework

Humid, inadequately purified compressed air is an ideal medium for microbial life to grow inside the system. The dew point is the single most important indicator of compressed air quality. Maintaining the correct dew point prevents microbes from growing, and effective filters keep their numbers lower compared to the ambient air.

The dew point is easy to measure, and the measurements are easy to feed into air quality monitoring systems.

Compressed air is vulnerable to contaminants present in the ambient air. Oil may be present in the air as an aerosol, and it is condensed by compression.

This is important to note because production equipment may release oil vapours in amounts that sound harmless enough – 0.05 milligrams per cubic metre, for example – but which grow considerably through condensation. The compressed air system eventually deposits the oil in food products and packaging, introducing an oily smell.

The food and beverage industries pay special attention to hygiene, especially within their production and delivery processes. However, the criteria for production equipment hygiene are often overlooked.

For companies, thorough testing of compressed air is often difficult and costly if done in-house, so it is worthwhile to hire industry experts to help with equipment purchases and maintenance. For example, all Parker products reach the highest grade of ISO 8573-1 as tested and certified by an independent third party. .

It is vital to account for all parts of the system that can produce impurities. Parker devices can remove all ten contaminants present in compressed air.

Water separators and filters

Water separators remove liquid water and oil from the system. By combining regular and high-power filters, the spread of rust, microbes, and water and oil aerosols can be prevented.

Air dryers

Dryers remove water vapour from the system. Adsorption dryers are excellent for maintaining the desired dew point and preventing microbial growth.

The Sarlin Balance compressed air control system can control compressors, maintain even pressure levels and provide measured data about the compressed air system’s functioning. The Balance system also monitors the compressed air system’s dew points and alerts the operators of any values approaching their threshold.

The Sarlin Balance system lowers costs, improves compressed air system reliability and assists with maintenance. Sarlin makes different versions of the control system to support any and all facilities and compressed air production needs.