What compressed air should feed hospital autoclaves?

HTM 02-01 (2026) treats medical air as a medicine and says it should not be used for process purposes such as endoscope dryers, that medical air systems should not provide air for sterilizer chambers or door seals, and that they should not be used as a power source for pendant control and braking systems. The ACIH datasheet makes the same point: hospital standards prohibit the use of medicinal air for industrial purposes and require an independent supply suited to the equipment installed in hospital buildings.

Quality of technical air

Technical compressed air has its own specification. In Portugal, ACSS ET 08/2010, revised in November 2025, covers technical compressed air distribution networks in hospital buildings and sets ISO 8573-1:2010 class [2:4:2] as the minimum quality for centrally produced air. ISO 8573-1 defines purity classes for compressed air by particles, water and oil. ACSS ET 03/2006 remains the separate Portuguese specification for medical gases and vacuum. Other countries have their own rules, so the national specification applies.

How ACIH does it

ACIH is the Ultra Controlo industrial hospital compressed air system. It complies with the Machinery Directive and ACSS ET 08/2010, and is designed to resemble the ISO 7396-1 requirements for redundancy, command, control and alarm systems, to keep a continuous air supply to pneumatic systems, including autoclaves for sterilization. ACIH is industrial equipment under the Machinery Directive, not a medical device and not a source of surgical air.

• Rotary screw compressors with oil separators, and an oil/water separator that treats the condensate before it is drained; totally oil-free compressors on request.
• Vertical tanks of 100 to 3,000 litres with electronic condensate drains.
• QuAir control with a digital console, and compressor controllers with an RS 485 Modbus RTU interface for management equipment.
• Adsorption dryers available for dew points of −20 °C or −40 °C.