| Speaking as someone who uses compressors both for shops and breathing air - this is mostly non-interesting so far.
For starters, 70db is actually pretty horrible. Indoor Scroll Compressors are around 47db (IE 100-1000 times quieter than the 70db mentioned here). They are completely oil-free and produce class 1/class 0 air. That is, you can use them to breathe from
They are not as energy efficient as rotary screws, but it's only off by about 20%. In practice, the flow of air into a tank produces way more noise than the compressor itself with these. Even rotary screws are around 60-65db, and there are both oil and water cooled versions. They are very energy efficient, and due to the design, can be put on VFD's and modulate air-demand incredibly well. Oil carryover is typically <3ppm, and you can use oils meant for incidental food contact/etc or filter it down further. Both the above have 100% duty cycles. They can be on continuously (and in fact, oil-flooded rotary screws get unhappy if they are used too little). Without more, or at least, based on what this article says, it's really hard to see what part of the market this thing will inhabit. They also don't talk at all about how to modulate them, what their duty cycle is, etc.
Nor the dewpoint, etc. |
I am no expert here so I am making the assumption that perhaps the innovative part here has to do with using fewer moving parts than existent solutions, and potentially naturally producing cool dry compressed air without any oil mixed in. The idea of fewer parts/nothing but the air filter, belt, fan, maybe drum bearing to ever replace I’d quite appealing to someone who only has access to a pancake compressor that’s loud as all hell.