Condensate  Management

Need help with your condensate?

What is air compressor condensate?

As part of the compression process all air compressors produce water condensate. This is an unavoidable law of nature, atmospheric air contains quite a lot of water (the exact amount depends on the temperature and humidity), compressed air only holds a much smaller amount of water. The difference between the large amount held in atmospheric air and the much smaller amount held in the compressed air comes out of the air as condensation within the compressor / receiver system as the air cools down.

In an oil free compressor the water condensate is basically water, in a lubricated compressor a little of the lubrication oil mixes with the condensate resulting in a mix of water and oil in the condensate that is expelled. There is only a tiny amount of oil in the condensate but there is enough to be a serious oil pollution problem if the condensate isnt treated properly.

Condensate management

The water resources act was introduced to place legal restrictions on industrial discharges to ground, waterway or storm drains. The need for this is very apparent since just 250ml of oil can cover many acres of water surface.

A relatively small 18KW compressor can produce many thousands of litres of condensate every year. This condensate can contain up to 1,000ppm of oil and other waste.

Watch our condensate management video for more information about use and set up of condensate separators

Condensate Separators

Since 99.9% of condensate is water it makes sense to remove the oil and other chemical waste from the water so that the remaining clean water can be legally disposed of down a foul drain (maximum oil content that can be put down a foul drain is 20ppm).

Our preferred condensate cleaning system is from Sepura, which provides a simple but effective cleaning solution using a patented sterling filter media reducing oil content of discharged water to less than 10ppm. The condensate cleaning system can be directly connected to all condensate sources (filters, compressor, receiver) and can be designed to drain down condensate automatically.

Watch our condensate management video for more information about use and set up of condensate separators

Star rating

NO HESITATION TO RECOMMEND THEIR SERVICES...HAVING USED AIR EQUIPMENT FOR A NUMBER OF YEARS, I WOULD HAVE NO HESITATION TO RECOMMEND THEIR SERVICES GOING FORWARD.   How Would You Rate our Overall Service = 10

Read ReviewsLatest posts

Condensate Management

High quality brands from a company you can trust

The technology and systems used in the compressed air industry is constantly changing. Air Equipment work with many of the companies that are leading this development. Because of our close co-operation with these world leading companies we are able to pass on these new technologies to you.

Learn about us

    Emergency:08456 715 522

    Stay up to date with all our latest news and products

    Sign up to the free newsletter and receive our monthly bulletin.