Reducing compressed air costs
February 04th 2008

Intelligent Pulsing of Compressed Air could benefit UK manufacturers explains Dr Alex Mardapittas of EMSc (UK). In many manufacturing companies, compressed air is one of the most expensive resources to generate. New compressor technology, leak reduction and minimising operating pressures are measures frequently adopted for reducing the electrical generation costs of compressed air.

EMSc (UK) decided to investigate using a microprocessor based system (AirStar) which enables accurate pulsing of air for applications where a continuous stream of high pressure air is not required in order to reduce the volume of air needed and thereby to reduce the generation cost.

AirStar was designed to allow for high speed, long life valves to be controlled for accurately defined pulses of air. Trials at a number of companies showed that the use of AirStar technology achieves a reduction in the compressed air consumption by us much as 76% (dependent on application) while at the same time it did not effect the process. Ideal applications for AirStar are movement of products/materials, dispersion of liquids, and so on.

Industries which can benefit are Plastic Extrusion and Injection Moulding, Textiles, Steel and any other industry which uses jets of compressed air in their process. Airstar is a cost effective, engineered solution for integration of flexible on/off control based on an Intelligent Microprocessor system with timed or sensor input.