Air Compressors and Their Uses

Air compressors have a lot of different uses the main 5 types seen by the public are as follows:

1. To supply clean high pressured air for breathing apparatus cylinders.

2. Submerged Surface Divers can be supplied with clean moderate pressure air.

3. Pneumatic Tools use them to receive large amounts of moderate pressure air.

4. Pneumatic Tyres use compressors to fill them with air.

5. Industrial process uses like macroscopic (oxidation for petroleum coking) these require moderate pressure in large volumes.

Compressed Air should always be used safely and controlled; it does come with certain dangers:

o It can rupture lungs if directed at the mouth.

o Brain damage can be caused if a blast of air under 40 pounds per square inch (PSI) is blasted towards the head from as little as 4 inches away

o It can also cause the eardrum to rupture

Air Compressor Systems have various uses and some that you may not think of like:

o Paintball guns use these to propel the ammunition through the air, as canister is fastened to the back of the gun and filled up to a certain pressure, the gauges have a range of 1 to 6, in the UK it is against the law to fill a paintball gun with a pressure of over 3. If overfilled the gun can become extremely dangerous.

o Road Vehicles use a similar device for their braking systems; these are called Air Brakes.

o Gas Dusters are another uncommon use and are used for situations when water cannot clean the component. Labeled as Clean Air this is very misleading as they are in fact filled with Hydrofluorocarbon (if inhaled can cause health risks).