AIR QUALITY CERTIFICATES ... and their actual benefits

monitoring breathing air quality,

Almost every user has experienced the taste of oil in the compressed air they breathe.

The increased concentration of pollutants usually manifests itself as a headache when breathing for a longer period of time and as a result of dizziness or even loss of consciousness when the concentration of pollutants is higher.

Every year there are injuries and deaths due to poisoning around the world, especially in diving.

Also CO₂, which is often incorrectly described as non-toxic, can cause the symptoms mentioned above at higher concentrations.

Since 1919 until today, fire departments, divers and industry have been testing air quality using so-called test tube tests, which allow a lot of scope for interpretation due to the color display and usually have a standard deviation of 10 - 15%. They are also subject to a strong aging process.

What makes it even more difficult is that it is only ever a snapshot.  

Just a minute later, the air quality may have changed due to some circumstances and no one will notice.

In studies carried out years ago by a well-known German diving magazine, comparative measurements were made on 5 different filling systems with test tubes and digital measuring devices, which mostly showed large measurement differences. Especially when it comes to water content and CO₂ The measured values showed alarmingly high differences that were often well above the limit values of DIN EN 1202:2014. These experiments showed above all that the CO₂ Limit value from DIN EN 1202:2014 can no longer be met almost everywhere due to increasing air pollution.

Above all, these measurements clearly show that from today's perspective the test tube measurements are no longer up-to-date and that these test tubes can only be used as indicators.

Only permanent online monitoring offers real protection against poor air quality and unwanted pollutants in the air. This is the only way to avoid gradual damage to health, injuries or even deaths caused by impurities in the air you breathe, and the filling personnel are therefore protected from significant liability risks.

So-called “Air quality certificates” from manufacturers

Additional help in sales discussions and tenders are the third-party air quality certificates brought into play by competitors, especially the market leader (which, despite the test center logos shown on them, turn out to be self-made manufacturer certificates on closer inspection).

The people and officials responsible for public tenders and also the responsible operators are happy to include such certificates in the documents required in the tenders.

Unfortunately, due to a lack of relevant background knowledge, the amount of papers counts more than the product itself.

However, as a responsible manufacturer, IDE COMPRESSORS only supplies such certificates with appropriate explanations because these certificates are actually totally worthless and the operators wrongly lull them into a false sense of security, which can have very serious consequences, especially in terms of liability.

Why are such certificates worthless and pointless?

These certificates are generally issued by the manufacturer under the best conditions.

The place where the tests for the certificates are carried out generally has the best conditions, which means: no CO, low CO₂ Values in the intake air, no other harmful gases in the air, new intake air filter, cleaned condensation water separator (or new one), fresh filter cartridges.

These certificates only represent a snapshot and many operators do not know that the filter cartridges, which are correctly called dryer cartridges, actually only have to filter out moisture and oil bound in the moisture and filter out bad smells, for example from oil, with the activated carbon contained in the cartridges.

Pollutants sucked in such as CO, CO₂, SO_2, Ci_2, H2S and other gases that may be in the sucked-in ambient air are not removed from the filter cartridges; they are simply passed through the filter tower into the bottles to be filled.

This means that different conditions prevail in every place where the machines are operated and therefore these certificates are really worthless.

These certificates also say nothing about the saturation level of the cartridges.

The saturation period from 85% to 100% is usually around 45 minutes depending on compressor performance. This means, for example, this morning before the start of filling, a test tube was used to measure the values and the values were ok, the filling process begins. But just 45 minutes later, the cartridges can become saturated and contaminated air gets into the bottles.

As early as 2007, IDE-Compressors was one of the manufacturers who recognized the signs of the times and developed and launched the first online measuring device for breathing air compressors AIRSAVE PREMIUM on the market. Over the years and up until today, IDE-COMPRESSORS has repeatedly defined the state of the art with its testing and measuring systems. The current product AIRSAVE ULTIMATE is the most advanced measuring device with measuring options that go far beyond the breathing air standard.