Polluted Intake Air

[Hoosier]

Here is a case.

You are located in the center of downtown where is notoriously air polluted (for example, high particulate matter, Ozone, and NOx). You need to operate a compressor and get an air fill on your tank. (To move to other clean suburb areas isn’t an option here).

What other additional part or equipment do you put in your fill station?
The simple stock and 2nd filtration appliance is ok enough to clean any polluted intake air?


Thanks in advance for your insight...

 

[rjack321]

I wouldn't worry too much about the particulates. The filter pads only let pretty tiny stuff through (not sure the micron size but its small). Much less than PM2.5 and PM10 air quality measurements. Anyway, you could put 2 pads at the downstream end of your primary filter just to be sure (cheap and easy, no harm).

As far as ozone goes, to my knowledge there's nothing you can do about it. Ditto for NOx. I'm a toxicologist, but not a filtration guru. So maybe there's something going on with these and 13x or AC that I'm not aware of.

I would use a secondary cartridge with hocalite in it to remove CO (again, they don't cost much more and are a good safety net).

13x can remove some of the excess CO2 found in urban areas, but I doubt that would be elevated sooo high as to cause a problem.

The compressed air will actually be much better than normal ambient when it comes to toxics, like benzene, toluene, and semivolatiles like PAHs (many are carcinogenic BTW and all are linked with heart disease). All of these nasties are going to bind pretty well with the AC and get removed.

RJ

PS IMHO: for a better answer, the dude to ask is swampdiver over on TDS.

 

[omar]

Hopcalite is a manganese oxide used as catalyst to convert carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide. Manganese oxides combined with other elements can be used to purify or scrub air of ozone and VOC’s. The problem is the intake will need to be dry or free of almost all water and you will need a low temperature type of system. These conditions result in a costly setup.

There are HEPA filters that you can use to remove particulates down to 0.3 microns that would address the majority of your concerns. These are not setups that you can screw onto the compressor intake. You would need to design an intake and filtration system prior to the compressor intake.

 

[pescador775]

AC adsorbs organics and heavy gases like ozone and nitrogen compounds. About the only thing it can't trap are low molecular weight gases like formaldehyde and ammonia, and it can't do much with CO2 or CO. Hopcalite should be effective against city concentrations of CO like 5-50 ppm. MS is good for moisture and oil mist. Don't worry about particulates unless you handpack. The compressor intake filter should be the pleated, paper type and is pretty effective. However, the filter media will generate particulates that cannot be totally absorbed by filter pads. Fortunately, Bauer and others install 2-5 micron discs in the top of the cartridges. If you hand pack it will be necessary to purchase a 5 micron inline filter from Compressed Air Specialties or Lawrence Factor. Hoosier, don't go crazy with this. Modern compressor filtration was developed with city generated pollution in mind.