Durgapur, West Bengal (ISJ) – India’s healthcare infrastructure faced severe stress during the second wave of COVD-19 infection, leaving hospitals to cope with critical drugs and oxygen in short supply. Scores of infected people died in hospitals gasping for the critical resource. The peak period saw the highest rate of mortality – more than half of over 3.81 lakh deaths recorded in the country (as on 17 June, 2021) since the outbreak of the viral infection in January 2020.
While the federal government, knocked the doors of several foreign governments and agencies to rush in liquid oxygen to replenish the depleting domestic stock, Indian research labs scrambled to develop innovative technologies to ramp up production capacity.
Durgapur-based Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI) under the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) has come up with an innovative method for Oxygen enrichment. It developed an in-situ Oxygen Technology, which concentrates Oxygen from ambient air, using Pressure Swing Absorption Method (PSA).
The technology entails two modules – a compressor unit and an oxygen concentration unit. The modular unit has an added advantage of flexibility to deploy in multi-bedded scenario in the country’s rural public health facilities.
“The technology can be scaled up for a bigger hospital. But our main intention is to decentralise availability of oxygen to hospitals in far-flung areas- villages, small dispensaries,” Dr. Harish Hiran, Director of CMERI told Indian Science Journal.
Currently, two versions of the plant are available – 5 LPM (litre per minute) version and 10 LPM version with a purity of 30-95 percent. Each unit is just 15-20 kilogram, depending on its configuration and can deliver oxygen at a pressure of 35-55 kPa (Kilopascal – a measurement of pressure – one pascal is a pressure of one newton per square metre).
“The unit requires easily available oil free reciprocating compressor, Oxygen grade zeolite sieves and pneumatic components. It is capable of delivering medical air in the range of up to 15 LPM with oxygen purity of more than 90 percent. If required, this unit can even deliver up to 70 LPM at a purity of around 30 percent and can safely be placed in the isolation ward of the hospital for patients who are in dire need of Oxygen,” Dr. Hirani added.
Dr. Hirani said, it is a cost-effective technology, with just one compressor for 10 to 20 beds.
Centralised generation of oxygen is capital-intensive with complicated delivery logistics. On the other hand, the in-situ model would help localised enriching of Oxygen involving local communities in concentrating and managing the medical intervention resource. The technology would also empower mirco, small and medium industries (MSME) to involve in its manufacturing. CMERI has already licensed the technology to 13 MSMEs across the country, for commercial production.
Source: CMERI, Durgapur
Image Credit: CMERI, Durgapur
