In order to minimize unforeseen obstacles, such as costly engineering modifications, facility renovations, and/or management commitments to this undertaking of qualifying an existing or designed air compressor to the standard “Compressed Air Contaminants and Purity Classes ISO 8573 Part 1,” a series of fundamental steps should be pondered in order to determine if your compressor will meet a set of prescribed requirements in order to achieve the desired classification.
The first step, for all interested parties, is to become familiar with the appropriate documents. ISO 8573 is broken into nine equal parts as listed in INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO 8573-1:2001 as follows:
Part 1: Contaminants and Purity Classes
Part 2: Test methods for aerosol content
Part 3: Test methods for measurement of humidity
Part 4: Test methods for solid particle content
Part 5: Determination of oil vapor and organic solvent content
Part 6: Determination of content of gaseous contaminants
Part 7: Test methods for viable microbiological contaminant content
Part 8: Contaminants and purity classes (by mass concentration of solid particles)
Part 9: Test methods for liquid water content