Why Inflate Tires with Nitrogen?

The science behind Nitrogen Tire Inflation.

Advantages of Using Nitrogen in Tires

Nitrogen tire inflation offers many great advantages over using compressed air in a tire:

Increased safety
It’s a fact that low tire pressure is the leading cause of tire failure, which can lead to an accident. It’s also a fact that the vast majority of consumers do not check their tire pressures often enough. Nitrogen reduces this problem; Nitrogen will not permeate through the rubber of the tire as quickly as compressed air (in fact, it’s 3-5 times slower), so a Nitrogen inflated tire will not lose pressure as quickly as it would have with compressed air. In addition (because pure Nitrogen contains no oxygen or moisture), the problem of corrosion in the rim’s bead area and valve stem seals is eliminated, both of which accelerate pressure loss.
Longer tire life
Due to the fact that a Nitrogen inflated tire stays properly inflated longer, it will run cooler which leads to longer life of the tire. Since it contains no oxygen, there is no oxidation of the rubber itself, nor of the steel belting which also leads to longer tread life.
Better fuel economy
Due to the fact that a Nitrogen inflated tire stays properly inflated for a longer period of time, fuel economy is improved. A cooler, properly inflated tire offers lower rolling resistance compared to a hot, underinflated tire. In fact, government studies show that up to 6% loss of fuel economy can result from underinflated tires.
Reduced tire pressure fluctuation
Due to its stability and absence of moisture, a Nitrogen inflated tire does not fluctuate pressure as significantly as a tire inflated with compressed air. With the requirement that OEM’S install tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS) on all vehicles sold in the U.S., this is important because it means fewer low pressure warning lights on the vehicle’s dash.

Methods of Inflating Tires with Nitrogen

There are two main methods with which to inflate tires with Nitrogen:

Cylinders of Nitrogen
With this method, cylinders of Nitrogen are produced under perfect conditions by your local gas or welding supply company. The result is a cylinder of 99% pure Nitrogen that is used to inflate your customers’ tires. Because it’s produced under perfect conditions, the Nitrogen that goes into your customers’ tires is always 99% pure, which is extremely important (see Nitrogen Purity section, below). Typically, one K-sized cylinder of Nitrogen can service 5-7 standard passenger cars (4 tires with 2 purge cycles).
Due to its simplicity, speed, low cost and virtually no maintenance requirement, our NIflate⁹⁹ nitrogen tire inflation equipment uses this method of inflating tires with Nitrogen.
Nitrogen Generator
With the Nitrogen generator method, your machine itself produces the Nitrogen out of the air that we breathe after being compressed by an air compressor. Using various technologies such as a membrane, and the fact at Nitrogen molecules are a different size than Oxygen molecules, the machine is able to separate the Nitrogen from everything else and store it for future use. Since it produces its own Nitrogen and does not use a pre-filled cylinder, the Nitrogen supply is virtually limitless.
However, Nitrogen generating machines come with a whole host of downsides and “gotcha’s” such as cost, complexity and degraded performance. For this reason, NIflate⁹⁹ equipment does not generate its own Nitrogen and instead uses the cylinder method of obtaining its Nitrogen.
We have dedicated an entire page to describe the problem with Nitrogen generating machines.

Does Nitrogen Purity Matter?

Surprisingly, the answer is yes. Since the atmosphere we all breathe already contains about 78% Nitrogen, it is vital that the Nitrogen you put in your customer’s tires be as pure as possible. If it is not, your customer will not see all the benefits offered by Nitrogen, and may turn into an unhappy customer that wonders why the service didn’t do all you had promised.

Generally, a Nitrogen purity of at least 96% is acceptable, and 96%-98% is optimal. The level of purity is dictated by two main factors:

The purity output of the Nitrogen inflator equipment you are using.
The number of purge cycles performed on each tire. A purge cycle consists of deflating the tire, then inflating with Nitrogen. For example, two purge cycles means a tire is first deflated, then inflated with Nitrogen, then done once again. A purge cycle is necessary simply because one cannot start with a tire with zero pressure. For every purge cycle performed, the purity in the tire increases.

In order to obtain the goal of 96%-98% purity, it is necessary to purge a passenger tire at least twice. A larger SUV or truck tire that takes 80psi or more can get by with just one purge.

Our NIflate⁹⁹ equipment can be set from 1 to 5 purge cycles. And since it uses cylinders of 99.9% pure Nitrogen, output is 99.9% every time you use it, and will never degrade over time as with a nitrogen generating machine.

Why Inflate Tires with Nitrogen?

Advantages of Using Nitrogen in Tires

Increased safety

Longer tire life

Better fuel economy

Reduced tire pressure fluctuation

Methods of Inflating Tires with Nitrogen

Cylinders of Nitrogen

Nitrogen Generator

Does Nitrogen Purity Matter?

Products

Nitrogen Resources

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