Interview on the future of Compressed Air and Sustainability

Recently I did an interview on the Sustainability of Compressed Air and what should be the technology closed to these requirements.

My opinion is :

Complete Oil-free Compression : in the Compressed Air,no oil is needed. Oil is injected into Oil-flooded compressors for reduction of the CAPEX but is creating alot of pollution and waste.

Energy Efficient at full load : the most energy efficient type of compression should be chosen at full load.

Energy Efficient at partial load : most compressors are running in partial load, therefor the energy efficiency during part load is as important as at full load

High reliability : this is the toppriority, factories are depending on the compressed air.  Any stop of the compressor can lead to production stop, production loss and thus waste of all kinds

Longer lifetime : the trend over the last decades has been to develop new Air-compressors to a lower manufacturing cost resulting in shorter lifetime.  Shorter lifetime means also to replace and dispose the entire compressor sooner

Low maintenance : maintenance requirements should be as limited as possible, less maintenance leads to less waste, less interventions and transportation

Less materials used : the smaller the compressor the lesser materials are being used.  Less materials means less energy to produce these materials

Less waste : Oil-free compressors are producing much less waste than Oil-flooded, but also in Oil-free compressors, there is still a difference in the amount of waste produced among the different technologies

TCO calculation of 20yrs or longer : the intitial capex on 5yrs Total Cost of Ownership calculation is only 10% of the total cost, with a longer life time of the compressor, in TCO calculation of 20 yrs the CAPEX becomes neglectable for the most Sustainable compressor thanks its the benefits.

Does this potential technology exist and complying with all those requirments ? To my opinion YES