Compressor waste water

[Kevin C]

The waste water from you compressor most likely will have some oil mixed in with it. Oil, water and oxygen will easily support mold and bacterial growth.

For fun, at work we took a sample of waste water from the compressor air lines and put it in agar in petri dishes. Within 24 hours we had a really nice colony of a yeast like growth. One of the biologists prepped a couple of slides, very interesting to see.

That was my cue to turn on the new dryer.

This is something I never really thought of. Wet air lines are a perfect breeding ground for all sorts of critters. That said, thing twice about blowing yourself off with compressed air or inhaling excessive amounts of compressed air. When you blow water out of your air line you are also spraying and aerosolizing what ever was growing in your air lines.

Compressor waste water is not a good thing in cuts.

A dryer will greatly cut down on organisms growing in your air lines. If the air from your compressor smells funny it might be from a biology experiment that running inside your tank and lines.

At the very least, make sure you keep your tank drained and avoid breathing water spray from your air lines.

Never hurts to be careful.

 

[Falcon67]

Yucky good info. We have auto purge units - time to develop a bleach injection unit??

 

[pipsters]

I wonder if some bleach thru the lines every now and then would help, just pour some in at the front of the hose, hook it up, and use a blow gun.

 

[Angelfire]

I love the fact that in ten years I probably haven't gotten even 8 oz of water out of my compressors! I guess that's one advantage to living in single digit humidity.

 

[bobforman]

Living in a wet place, Seattle, my compressor picks up little water too. It is protected at the back of my shop so it's sucking only inside air. Still, I'm amazed at how little I accumulate over a week or month.

 

[Ben Buck]

HOLY BIOLOGY BATMAN!!! Who'd a thunk it!! I just got an older 80 gal compressor from an auction, I've been trying to clean it up on the outside, plus running the pressure up and opening the drain and letting it rip Ralph!! I bet I've got yeast growing all over the place, I've got to keep my beer covered!!

 

[mothgrey]

Well thanks for spoiling the easy way I blow off the dirt from my arms and pants.

Good info.

 

[galute]

I can easily see stuff growing in the **** you drain out of a compressor. But I got to wonder, is it possible for anything to live under 100+ psi?

 

[WhoWhatNow]

I can easily see stuff growing in the **** you drain out of a compressor. But I got to wonder, is it possible for anything to live under 100+ psi?

Nature abhors a vacuum. You will find life just about everywhere on earth.

http://aem.asm.org/content/64/4/1510.full

70Mpa is about 10152 psi according to the online calculator I used.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezophile

 

[KPSquared]

I usually save my compressor run off to make iced tea. It's always the same color so I thought it would work well. . .

 

[HoseB]

But I got to wonder, is it possible for anything to live under 100+ psi?

One mile under the ocean and you're at 2280psi. This guy seems to be thriving well...

 

[Kevin C]

Microorganisms are pretty adaptable and dont have a problem growing under various conditions. There are organisms living near volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean.

My recommendation is to make sure you regularly drain you compressor tank and drain traps. I'm still going to use my compressed air to blow saw dust off of me but never near a any broken skin or near my face. If you have waste water on your hands, dont rub your eyes.

If you have any water spray coming out your air line, you dont want that on your skin.

When you drain your tank avoid turning opening the valve to the point where you create an aerosol from the trapped water.

Run your automatic tank drains to a hose that exits away from your work area. Putting a muffler on the end is not a bad idea. The muffler really helps with the noise level and helps to coalesce the spray coming out. I got one from McMaster Carr for $9

If you have a compromised immune system compressed you need to be careful.

I dont want to turn this into a panic thread, that compresses air is really dangerous. this is more of a sharing some understanding of systems.

The big one for me is now that I know that the microorganisms are digesting waste oil in my compressor tank i'm going to be a lot better about draining it.

 

[galute]

One mile under the ocean and you're at 2280psi. This guy seems to be thriving well...

YIKES! Well, at least he won't have to worry about me coming down there and bothering him. LOL.

 

[kbs2244]

The compressor didn't put it there.
It had to **** it in, which means it was already floating around in the air.
Maybe guilty of concentrating it, but then that is what compressors do.
No harm, no foul.

 

[Kevin C]

The compressor didn't put it there.
It had to **** it in, which means it was already floating around in the air.
Maybe guilty of concentrating it, but then that is what compressors do.
No harm, no foul.

May want to read a bit more before you conclude no harm no foul.......

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/legionnairesdisease.html

Same mechanism. This is a know issue in hospitals, food service and in dental compressors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionellosis

Transmission

Infection normally occurs after inhaling an aerosol (fine airborne particles) containing Legionella bacteria. Such particles could originate from any infected water source. When mechanical action breaks the surface of the water, small water droplets are formed, which evaporate very quickly. If these droplets contain bacteria, the bacteria cells remain suspended in the air, invisible to the naked eye and small enough to be inhaled into the lungs.[12] This often occurs in poorly ventilated areas such as prisons where a condensating air conditioner can spread it throughout the entire room, infecting anyone not immune to the strain of bacteria.

Spraying contaminated water is a perfect method to get a respiratory infection. This depends on what colonies are growing in the water that condenses in your piping. Ours seemed to be a form of yeast. Odds are, its not going to be the same bacteria I linked to. The main issue is compressed air with water is a perfect transport mechanism for bacteria and wet piping is a great breeding ground.

 

[Nowater]

Ok, how about explaining to us woodworkers who use just a little compressed air, just how to put in a dryer, what type, and how to maintain it. Sounds like I need one, but I don't know what kind. Thanks in advance.

 

[Twiggss]

not worried, I'm sure on a daily basis we all breathe in worse stuff. That is what nose hairs and boogers are for...oh and a good lugie now and then.

 

[VWingman]

I have noticed on a few occasions my compressed air has an odor of natural gas. I wonder if there is something brewing in there? If I'm correct natural gas is odorless and it is another gas that gives it the smell.

 

[Tim The Tool Man]

Injecting/sucking bleach into the compressor tank will probably kill lots of the **** living in there but it will only be temporary unless it is flushed on a regular basis. Problem is bleach is a corrosive compound and keeping a tank rust free is hard enough. That said, there is no way I'd put bleach in my compressor.

if I were a sickly individual I might worry more about this but for now I'm just going to exercise some common sense when using compressed air.

 

[MScott]

Injecting/sucking bleach into the compressor tank will probably kill lots of the **** living in there but it will only be temporary unless it is flushed on a regular basis. Problem is bleach is a corrosive compound and keeping a tank rust free is hard enough. That said, there is no way I'd put bleach in my compressor.

if I were a sickly individual I might worry more about this but for now I'm just going to exercise some common sense when using compressed air.

Hydrogen peroxide can be used to purify tanks instead of bleach. It is often used to clean hot water tanks and is safe even for drinking water.

 

[kwb]

Are you fricken kidding me?
Really?
Is this all you have to worry about?

It is SHOP AIR, it is for running tools, blowing things off, filling tires (don't get me started on N2 fill), not for filling a SCUBA tank where your health/life depends on clean air.

Last check my DA, impact wrench, or Die Grinder wasn't all that likely to pick up a bacterial infection.

 

[ptschram]

When I was in college, I spent a summer working in a lab doing nothing but drinking water coliform testing (beat the Hell out of the other lab(s) I worked in doing wastewater analysis).

One of our clients was a spring water bottling set-up. Every stinking sample would turn up positive for coliform bacteria. After I'd been there about two weeks, this goofy guy comes waltzing into my lab (keep in mind I did biological testing, access was kinda tight) demanding to observe my lab technique. Yep, it was the guy who owned the spring.

After showing him petri dishes that were bursting at the seams where the colonies were TNTC, he got more pissed off at me.

We finally convinced him to let us take a field trip to his bottling plant.

Lo and behold, he was using an antique air compressor to force the water into the filters and into the bottles. Yep, the compressor was a beautiful incubator and the filter worked well as a concentrator of those cute little microbial beasties!

I feel sorry for the folks who bought his bottled water thinking it was safe.

 

[Kevin C]

Are you fricken kidding me?
Really?
Is this all you have to worry about?

It is SHOP AIR, it is for running tools, blowing things off, filling tires (don't get me started on N2 fill), not for filling a SCUBA tank where your health/life depends on clean air.

Last check my DA, impact wrench, or Die Grinder wasn't all that likely to pick up a bacterial infection.

Things I worry about? I work for a medical company. We have shop air and its a possible contamination source. I started looking into this after I noticed a valve on a bottling machine was plugged up. The lube in the valve had turned to a solid and I didnt know why.

I recommend we install a dryer to control moisture in the lines. To make sure we understood what we were working with the companies owner had samples of the moisture in the lines tested in the lab. We prepared three samples on three differant agar's.

When you work with a bunch of biologists you quickly find that they ask questions that you dont normally hear. Like can do do a Gram negative stain on the water from the compressed air system? Prep some media to culture the samples.

Those samples were then placed on slides and stained. The lab tec identified what we had growing.

What I learned:

The bacteria, assisted by moisture in the lines digested the lube in the valves and leaving a nasty solid in them. They are pretty expensive pneumatic control valves.

I added a dryer to the shop air and we have the problem under control. If its OK with you, I shared what I learned.

My personal plan.... Dont drink what comes out of the tank and dont spray it on an open cut. Avoid breathing large amounts of wet air spray when draining your tank. Drain the compressor tank once in a while, wear sunscreen, eat lots of vegies.

If you have a compromised immune system be extra careful.

Basically Tim the tool Man summed up what I was trying to get across:

if I were a sickly individual I might worry more about this but for now I'm just going to exercise some common sense when using compressed air.

That's the take away I was trying to get across.

For anyone that's a member that uses compressed air for industrial applications, I hope my experiences can save them some problems. For the rest of you... I dont think this is a big issue, just sharing what I learned.

 

[softailgarage]

Thanks Kevin, something else to worry about, as if theres not enough already.

 

[ctb]

There's probably more bacteria on a bathroom door handle. Of course if we were afraid of those, we'd all be crapping in the woods.

 

[1967marti]

Hydrogen peroxide will eat copper... I'm pretty sure that was the root cause of the last Russian sub that blew up, one of their torps was leaking hydrogen peroxide (propellant). True the stuff you buy at wal-mart isn't that strong but maybe the hair bleaching stuff from a beauty supply store could cause damage to your copper lines?
I don't worry about the growth inside the compressor.... I'm covered with germs, you're covered with germs that's what we have immune systems for. I'd be more worried about getting some oil shot into my nose by a blast from an air hose than getting koodies...