Oil-Free vs. oil-flooded air compressors: what’s right for your application?
The best choice depends on your industry’s air purity requirements, though there are meaningful differences in maintenance and lifecycle costs. Compressed air is often called “the fourth utility” in manufacturing, standing alongside electricity, water and natural gas. More than 70% of manufacturers rely on compressed air for applications such as powering machine tools, spray painting and material handling. Because it is so central to daily operations, the quality of compressed air has a direct impact on a plant’s operations. One of the biggest choices plants need to make is between two air compressor designs: oil-flooded and oil-free. Each takes a different approach to producing compressed air, and they both have implicit benefits and tradeoffs. Oil-flooded compressors, such as ELGi EN Series , are widely used when efficiency and lower upfront cost are priorities. Oil-free compressors, such as ELGi OF Series , are the standard when the highest levels of air purity are...