Compressed air innovator a winner

Victorian-based, compressed air technology developer Global EARS Limited has won the Small Business category of the 2008 Governor of Victoria Export Awards and has also claimed the Commendation for Innovation Excellence.

The compressed air technology has been successfully commercialised and is now exported and sold all over the world, especially to industrial users of compressed air tools and equipment.

The EARS (Exhausted Air Recycling System) technology resulted from the problems encountered by company founder and CEO Chris Bosua.

As a mechanical engineer he became frustrated by trying to make an air-tool work with an air compressor that was simply too small for the task.

He realised that the problem was waste — as much of the energy that was employed to create the compressed air supply was wasted out the exhaust port of the pneumatic tool.

With a bit of ‘Aussie can do’, Chris invented a closed loop system where the wasted air is returned back to the compressor enabling the volumetric capacity of a compressor to be increased by up to 80%, while the energy used and power consumption can be reduced by as much as 40%, so effectively a smaller sized compressor can perform more significant tasks.

The result is a compressor which employs a special manifold that gives almost double the capacity and so E.A.R.S was born.

As the project evolved, other benefits were revealed.

There was a reduction in noise generated in the use of pneumatic tools like air drills with less pollution.

Recently, Global EARS has linked with CEJN, a pneumatic and hydraulic coupling manufacturer.