Which air-driven gas booster is best for you?

Gas boosters are used in a wide variety of industries to supply high pressure gas. Oil and Gas service companies use for instance Nitrogen gas to leak test vessels, valves, and piping. They also charge gas operated actuators to their design pressure. Hose assemblers use Nitrogen gas to perform pressure tests to test the integrity of their hoses and tubing. Gas boosters are used to fill fire extinguishers with Nitrogen or Carbon Dioxide. They are even used to refuel Hydrogen powered vehicles within hydrogen refueling stations.

With all these different applications, how do you know which gas booster is best for you?

Different types of air-driven gas booster

Air-driven gas boosters have large diameter air piston and small diameter high pressure (HP) pistons. Air supply provides the force to drive the air piston up and down by the action of valves. The HP piston moves in sync with the air piston as they are mechanically connected. As the HP piston moves down its cylinder, it draws gas into the chamber. When it returns up the cylinder, the gas is pushed out at a much higher pressure. The high pressure is achieved due to the diameter difference between the HP piston and air-drive piston. This is also referred to as the lever effect.

A Single-acting gas booster has only one HP cylinder. Air supply drives the air piston back and forth, which is connected to the one HP piston. Gas is discharged in bursts due to the cycle of drawing gas in and then pushing it out under pressure. This means that there is no continuous flow of gas into the discharge piping.

A Double-acting gas booster has two HP cylinders to compress gas. The HP cylinders are connected to opposite sides of the air-drive piston. While one side is discharging the other is drawing in supply gas and vice versa. For this reason, a double acting gas booster provides a constant flow of HP gas compared to the bursts of gas supplied by a single acting booster.

Dual-stage boosters generate very high pressures with low supply pressure by using the discharge from the first stage as the supply for the second stage. The first stage delivers a medium pressure (MP) gas depending on the diameter of the MP cylinder. The HP stage uses a very small diameter cylinder to boost the medium pressure gas to its final pressure. Dual-stage boosters deliver a higher discharge pressure than single- or double-acting gas boosters when considering the inlet pressure.

Choosing the booster best for you

Selection of which gas booster is right for you depends on the outlet pressure, supply pressure, and flow rate you require. Single-acting gas boosters deliver the lowest flow, while dual-stage gas boosters deliver the highest outlet pressure considering low supply pressures. Double-acting gas boosters give the highest flow rate as both sides of the cylinder are active, compared to single-acting gas boosters.

Find out more about gas boosters at Resato High Pressure Technology

Resato supplies single acting, double acting and dual stage gas boosters for a variety of applications. Our sales people with support from our engineers can help you evaluate which is the best gas booster to meet your needs.