In compressed air systems, managing condensate effectively is important. Condensate, primarily water mixed with traces of oil, is a byproduct of the air compression process. Proper handling involves both minimizing its formation and ensuring its safe disposal.

The key to minimizing condensate lies in efficient system management and design. Regular maintenance of air compressors is essential, as it ensures systems operate within their design specifications, at lower desired temperatures, preventing excessive condensation.

Temperature plays a pivotal role in condensate formation. Every 20掳 F in higher air temperature doubles the amount of water vapor. Cooler intake and discharge air contains less moisture, which translates into less condensation downstream. By optimizing the intake environment and cooling systems (to ensure air is as cool as possible), the amount of condensate generated can be significantly reduced.

Air dryers are another vital component in managing moisture in compressed air systems. By integrating devices such as desiccant dryers, refrigerated dryers, or membrane dryers, businesses can remove water vapor before it condenses, maintaining the efficiency and longevity of their compressed air systems.

Disposal of compressed air condensate must be handled with care to avoid environmental harm. Because the condensate from air compressors often contains oil, using an oil-water separator is essential. These separators extract oil from the condensate, allowing for the safe disposal of both components. The oil can be collected and disposed of according to hazardous waste guidelines, while the treated water, stripped of harmful contaminants, can be discharged in compliance with local environmental regulations.

It is desirable in most plants to have condensate drains that expel the water into a container, but in doing so wasting very little compressed air. One can just imagine how many thousands of cracked open drains there are in the mine pictured in Fig. 1, adding up to thousands of dollars a year in wasted drainage.

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The recipients are Jessica Ruby of Holland Township, New Jersey, a senior mechanical engineering student at The College of New Jersey, and Kolin Limburg of Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania, a senior majoring in聽 building automation engineering at the Pennsylvania College of Technology. Emerson awarded each student聽 a $5,000 scholarship and granted an additional $1,000 to the engineering department of each of their聽 colleges.

“With each new generation, as we refine our priorities and vision for a brighter future, we must also rededicate our support of tomorrow’s innovators and workforce,鈥� said Jenny Lenhard, president, Americas and industrial automation for fluid and motion control at Emerson. 鈥淎t Emerson, our commitment includes a strong program of ongoing global STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) initiatives 鈥斅� including the ASCO Engineering Scholarships. Congratulations to Jessica and Kolin as our 2021 scholarship recipients 鈥� and for their commitment to a better tomorrow.鈥�

To date, Emerson has awarded $168,000 in scholarships and grants through its ASCO Engineering Scholarship Program, supporting 28 outstanding engineering students and their institutions of higher education.

Ruby is pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering, with an expected graduation date of May 2022. Her excellence in mathematics in school led her to pursue a career in engineering. “I knew that entering a STEM field as a young woman would be challenging, but it鈥檚 where I鈥檓 meant to be,鈥� said Ruby.聽 鈥淓ngineering will allow for me to leave an impact on the world.”

Limburg is a senior in the Building Automation Engineering Program, focusing on the HVAC controls of large facilities, and also expects to graduate in May 2022. “As a society, we are finally recognizing the real importance of infrastructure to our economy and country,” Kolin said. “As engineers, we must be sure that the advancements we make will truly improve the future through energy management and conservation. I find that opportunity very exciting.”

For the past 14 years, Emerson has opened its ASCO Engineering Scholarship Program to U.S. citizens and legal U.S. residents. Applicants must have completed their sophomore year in a bachelor’s degree program or be enrolled in a graduate program at an accredited U.S. educational institution at the time of application.

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Thousands of companies, like Festo, have sent their employees to work at home. In this way, many areas of the economy have been able to stay afloat because digitalization has advanced extensively in the private sphere. But many production jobs are location-bound. The basic principles of Industrie 4.0 will make mobile working possible in industrial production of the future, and the crisis has driven digitalization worldwide.

鈥淲e are feeling Corona very clearly through changes in our online business. This trend will be a lasting, long-term one: a sustained shift to digital channels and offerings. We realize more than ever that in times of crisis it is crucial to provide our customers with comprehensive virtual support,鈥� said Oliver Jung, Chairman of the Management Board. Therefore, Festo provided customers and partners with a digital collaboration platform that contains engineering tools, an online shop, access to all Festo services and the digital maintenance manager Smartenance. This enabled Festo to offer its customers and partners consistent touchpoints in the virtual world.

Many companies were suddenly confronted with a completely different demand behavior. Faster availability or suddenly much higher quantities of certain products required companies to be as flexible as possible when converting their production. The digitalization of automation technology provides a remedy. Components that are intelligently networked independently, self-configuring and thus plug-and-produce capable, enable the systems to meet changing requirements faster. The necessary data and information are synchronized via cloud services and can be accessed at any time.

In Festo’s global production network, plants are networked with each other and are in constant exchange. 鈥淲ithin the network, we have largely been able to compensate for production bottlenecks, for example when plant shutdowns ordered by the authorities occur. This requires a stable and powerful IT infrastructure that can cope with modern possibilities such as cloud data storage, so that all data is available worldwide in near real-time,鈥� said Ansgar Kriwet, Member of the Management Board Sales.

The trend towards intelligently networked production is proving to be crisis-proof and sustainable, they said. A prerequisite for this is the virtualization of products, machines and systems, so that factory workers will also be able to control 鈥渢heir鈥� machine from their home office. To do this, machines and systems require a digital twin that is equipped with the same functions as its real counterpart. Embedded sensor technology enriches the digital twin with process data and users gain insight into the internal condition of the machines.

These virtual twins of machinery, systems and value flows have another great advantage: The processes, parameterizations and configurations can be acted out in these computer-generated simulations without the need to intervene in existing production processes. This saves costs and time 鈥� which is crucial for countries with a high labor content in manufacturing costs, so that they can remain competitive on the global market.

Platform Industrie 4.0
The central driver of the digital transformation is the Platform Industrie 4.0, which supports German companies as well as numerous international cooperations. 鈥淥ur mission statement 2030 with its three focal points sovereignty, interoperability and sustainability provides an excellent framework for action to emerge from the crisis stronger and to expand our global pioneering role in open, digital ecosystems,鈥� said Frank Melzer, Member of the Management Board for Product and Technology Management.

AI is key
With AI there is further added value for Festo customers and also for Festo itself. 鈥淎rtificial intelligence can be used to make predictions about possible failures of individual components or optimization potential available to the machine operator. In combination with human experience, we have already been able to achieve significant efficiency improvements in our own plants,鈥� said Kriwet. Artificial intelligence is characterized by its self-learning ability. The more data available, the better the predictions. As a result, downtime and expensive rejects are reduced.

To generate added value and increase efficiency with the methods from the algorithmic toolbox, use cases must be precisely defined. Satisfactory results are only possible if the data are strategically prestructured and are available in sufficient quantity. 鈥淲e have taken a close look at quality assurance with AI in a production process at our own factories and have come to the conclusion that the big data approach from the consumer market is not successful in industry. We only managed to significantly increase efficiency once we united the expertise of the machine operators with the appropriate statistical methods of AI,鈥� said Jung.

Festo is currently focusing above all on AI assessments 鈥渙n edge,鈥� in other words directly on the component or on location within a production network. This saves costs, ensures real-time assessments and avoids latencies. With the Festo IoT Gateway, existing production plants can be made AI-capable without major intervention. Algorithms and models can be updated directly on a device without modifying the PLC, independently of the computer capacity or the free resources of the PLC.

Smart products
鈥淚n order to be able to exploit the opportunities and advantages of Industrie 4.0, we need mechanically excellent and additionally smart products at the field level that have integrated computing power and communication capabilities. We have therefore combined the outstanding mechanical properties of piezo valves with a digitally controlled variety of functions in a unique product, the Festo Motion Terminal,鈥� said Kriwet.

Functions of the valve terminal can be controlled via app so that different tasks can be performed with the same hardware. 鈥淭he Festo Motion Terminal combines standard pneumatics, electronics and software control to create intelligent technology. This ranges from simple directional control valves to complex motion tasks, status monitoring, variable positioning, reduced energy consumption and significantly fewer components that need to be installed. With the Festo Motion Terminal, we open up completely new solution areas for our customers,鈥� said Kriwet.

Festo

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