We recently shipped an Ingersoll Rand 22402226 air / oil separator replacement to a customer and they quickly contacted us with a problem. The air oil separator had only been in use for 17 hours and oil had already appeared in the bottom of the separator. After further inspection, they noticed the separator's filtration media was saturated with oil. 

The first thing we did was ship another separator to them without any questions. They were down and that was most important. When we had time to review, do you think it was the air/oil separators fault?

Fortunately, it was not our separators fault for the oil found in the air oil separator. Engineering determined the oil in the separator filter was due to a blocked scavenge line. The scavenge line is supposed to remove that oil, which means our air/oil separator did it's job in removing the oil. It was just way too much oil for any oil separator to handle!

The scavenge line is designed to remove the oil from the bottom of the air/or separator. Scavenge pipe issues to look for include a bent scavenge pipe, a scavenge pipe that is too long and touches the bottom of the separator, and a dirty scavenge line. These issues can all cause oil to accumulate in your separator. 

The customer was so nice about it that we still refunded them for the air/oil separator that they returned. Join us next time for another exciting edition of Separator or Scavenge Line?