The usefulness of oxygen concentrator for daily supplemental oxygen

03 Feb 2023

Oxygen concentrator is the health care equipment in people's life.Oxygen is an indispensable element of life in the human body and an important substance for the production of energy required for the functional activities of the body.Research shows that in the metabolic process of human body, energy is produced in the oxidation process of oxygen combined with various nutrients, so oxygen is an important guarantee for human life activities.

If people are often in the environment of oxygen deficiency, such as in the plateau area above 3000m above sea level, which is characterized by low air pressure, the partial pressure of oxygen in the air is also low, which is prone to lead to human hypoxia.Or in confined and crowded indoor places or underground pits and caves, where the oxygen content is low, resulting in low partial pressure of oxygen in the air and making the body hypoxic.Hypoxia can cause different degrees of damage to the human nervous system, digestive system, respiratory system, etc. Severe hypoxia can directly threaten the life of a person.

For hypoxic patients, oxygen supplementation is an important treatment.In most hospitals, people can easily draw oxygen from oxygen concentrator in the ward.However, in some remote areas of small hospitals, highland journeys or harsh operating environment, it will be subject to many conditions. It is not convenient to access the oxygen.

Oxygen concentrator is an important equipment for medical oxygen supplementation, and is an important measure for combat wound treatment.Commonly used oxygen production methods include deep cooling, chemical, membrane separation and Pressure Swing Adoption.The deep-cooling method is mainly used to produce oxygen by low-temperature distillation, but it is only suitable for large-scale oxygen production due to its large investment, high energy consumption and complicated operation.

For small and medium scale oxygen production, the commonly used oxygen production method is the Pressure Swing Adoption.Compared with the traditional oxygen production by low temperature method, oxygen production by Pressure Swing Adoption has the advantages of low investment, low energy consumption and low cost.

At present, the development direction of oxygen production technology is mainly miniaturization of equipment, large capacity and high concentration of oxygen, among which miniaturization is a very important research direction in the field of oxygen production by Pressure Swing Adoption.

At present, the development direction of oxygen production technology is mainly miniaturization of equipment, large capacity and high concentration of oxygen, among which miniaturization is a very important research direction in the field of oxygen production by Pressure Swing Adoption.

The Pressure Swing Adoption

The Pressure Swing Adoption gas separation technology was developed in the 1960s.In 1962, Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) discovered the selective adsorption of molecular sieves for the first time and completed experiments on the separation of a few gases, followed by the development of the world's first hydrogen production plant.

In the mid-1970s, the Pressure Swing Adoption technology was first applied in air separation to produce oxygen or nitrogen.Subsequently, the introduction of the vacuum desorption process led to a significant improvement in the economic indicators of the VPS oxygen generation technology.

Oxygen production by Pressure Swing Adoption is widely used in oxygen concentrator equipment with its advantages of low energy consumption and low cost.In the mid-1980s, with the development of Pressure Swing Adoption oxygen concentration technology, the performance of molecular sieve was further improved, making it possible to miniaturize Pressure Swing Adoption oxygen concentrator equipment.

Most of the existing portable oxygen concentrators use the direct oxygen supply method, which has a low oxygen utilization rate, because the patient only uses oxygen when inhaling, while the patient exhales and rests, oxygen is still continuously produced, and nearly 2/3 of the oxygen is wasted.

According to the principle of oxygen production by variable pressure adsorption, the process flow of oxygen production system is established, and the on-site preparation of oxygen is realized by using air as raw material.

With the microcontroller as the control core, we design the oxygen generator oxygen production and supply control system, including oxygen preparation system, power management system, pulse breathing oxygen supply system, air compressor control system, human-machine interaction system and alarm system, etc.

In particular, the pulse oxygen supply system can detect the change of human respiratory pressure by micro-movement differential pressure switch according to the characteristics of flow and pressure change in the process of human respiration, and control the opening and closing of solenoid valve by microcontroller to realize the pulse oxygen supply of portable oxygen concentrator.Pulse oxygen supply system can reduce energy consumption, save oxygen consumption and improve oxygen production efficiency.

Keywords: oxygen concentrator

Originally published 03 Feb 2023, updated 03 Feb 2023.