The Italian company Mattei has launched an oil-monitoring system for its compressors that keeps a constant watch on the quality and temperature of the oil, supporting good operations and a longer life of the compressor. With an eye on sustainability and improvement of the energy efficiency of operations.
All is needed is an oil quality sensor and a SIM card within the control panel, enabling real-time access to the health of the rotary vane compressor, from anywhere in the world. The cornerstone is the control system developed by Mattei of the sensor itself, which acquires the data on the quality of the lubricant and passes it to the cloud. Thereby from Italy it is possible to process the data to provide suggestions for interventions at plants located anywhere globally.
In heavy applications, or in particularly dirty environments, the oil is exposed to interactions with external agents, that could contaminate it. Contaminated oil could then compromise machine operations or even the machine itself. By installing this sensor and control system, the direct screening of the state of the oil allows for the coordination of preventive maintenance interventions. In the event of anomalies, it is possible to interrupt the operation of the machine, or simply just replace the oil, preventing more serious damage such as failure of the compressor.
In rotary vane compressors, in addition to lubrication, the oil also performs the important function of controlling the operating temperature as well as guaranteeing the high volumetric efficiency of the machine. Here, the sensor can communicate directly with Mattei control systems, if present. Alternatively the company has prepared customised kits, that can also be retrofitted on third-party machines, made of a sensor and a control system that transmits data via the cloud allowing to monitor the machine remotely, as it is constantly monitoring the aging of the lubricant.
The oil quality sensor is available as an option on all Mattei compressors and is ideally suited for installation on larger machines, especially within the food and beverage sector, where excellent air quality is required, free of any impurities. The biogas and natural gas compression sector is also challenging and Mattei has studied specific lubricants which react in the best way to the high concentration of sulfuric acid; a highly aggressive agent that could favour the premature breakdown of the oil.