Brief Introduction of Industry Standard for Air Compressor for Food

First of all, answer the main question: the food industry with oil-free compressor is not necessarily good.

This should first remove several aspects of compressed air used in the food industry.

Compressed air used in the food industry is divided into three types according to whether it is in direct contact with food:

1. Direct contact: "compressed air is used as part of the production and processing process, including the packaging and transportation of safe food, and compressed air in direct contact with the finished food or its ingredients as part of the production process.

For example: using air cooling and moving the finished product from one process to another, compressed air should have the same mass star priority as any other ingredients.

Indirect contact: refers to the compressed air discharged into the general environment of the food, including its packaging, processes and production equipment or the storage location of the food and its ingredients.

For example, use compressed air to blow PET bottles or prepare and open bags before pouring food, similar to the valve activated by compressed air near the finished food or its ingredients.

Non-contact: Food production enterprises tend to "over-protect" air compression systems, so it is equally important to pay attention to non-contact low-risk systems. Most factories have a significant proportion (more than 50%) of compressed air entering "factory air" applications that will not come into contact with food or food packaging machinery at all.

The British Compressed Air Association's food-grade compressed air operating specifications for the above three situations have carried out separate compressed air grade requirements

based on ISO8573-1.

The quality level of compressed air in direct contact with compressed air is:

solid particles: Grade 1

water content: Grade 2

oil content: Grade 1

in order to achieve the above level requirements, the compressed air from the air compressor should be equipped with cold dryer (coarse water removal), suction dryer (fine dehydration), catalytic oxidation oil removal equipment (oil removal) and precision filter (dust removal). To meet the above compressed air quality.

For compressed air with indirect contact, the compressed air quality level is:

solid particles: Grade 1

water content: Grade 4

oil content: Grade 1

in order to achieve the above level requirements, the compressed air from the air compressor should be equipped with cold dryer (coarse water removal), catalytic oxidation oil removal equipment (oil removal) and precision filter (dust removal). To meet the above compressed air quality.

To sum up, the food industry can use oil-free air compressor as an indirect contact and non-contact type of compressed air source, not as a direct contact type of compressed air source. Because the oil content of the air source of the oil-free air compressor cannot reach the required level 1, the oil removal equipment must be added at the back end. In order to meet the requirements, after all, there is no guarantee that the gas compressed by the oil-free compressor is oil-free in the atmospheric environment. Therefore, oil-free compressors are also not good for the food industry in direct contact.