What is Oxygen Concentrator

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Oxygen concentrator has its use in medical as well as industrial fields. Let us focus on what is oxygen concentrator and its uses in different fields.

What is Oxygen Concentrator?

An oxygen concentrator is known to be a device which provides oxygen therapy to a patient, in which higher oxygen concentration is available as compared to ambient air. It is present in a safer, minimum expensive and more appropriate option to tanks of compressed oxygen.

Common models of oxygen concentrator are available in nearly 800 US dollars. It is also available in rental basis through medical-supply companies and insurance agencies. Along with its medical use, these are also used to provide the source of oxygen in various types of industrial processes.

Working Principle of Oxygen Concentrator

This Oxygen Concentrator uses the ambient air for its working principle. This air is normally 80% nitrogen and only 20% oxygen.
The oxygen concentrator separates these two components with the help of zeolite granules to specifically absorb nitrogen from condensed air.
Zeolite is an inorganic porous material that allows specific molecules to pass through and at the same time causes other molecules to be either excluded or broken down.
As a result, there is rise in compressor air pressure to about 20-lbs per square inch (P.S.I).
This compressed air gets introduced into the canisters where it separates l nitrogen and the l residual oxygen gets available for the use of the patient.
In the 20 seconds of time, the supply of compressed air gets diverted to the second canister where this process is continuously repeated which enables the output of oxygen without any disturbance.
It is observed that when pressure in the second canister reaches to 20 P.S.I., the pressure in the first is reduced to zero. This condition allows nitrogen to release from the zeolite and get back into the atmosphere.
In this way, the zeolite is regenerated and prepared for the next cycle

Portable Oxygen Concentrators

From the year 2000, there have been many manufacturers who introduced portable oxygen concentrators in the market.
These are known to produce less than one liter oxygen per minute and deliver this oxygen at the time when the patient is inhaling.
Along with this, there are other oxygen concentrators which produce 3 LPM of continuous-flow of oxygen.
These portable oxygen concentrators get plugged into a vehicle’s DC adapter.

Military Uses of Oxygen Concentrator

It is known that combat aircraft uses molecular sieve oxygen concentrators (MSOC) to supply the oxygen to the pilot at higher altitudes.
Oxygen concentrators are popularly used by the US as a part of the equipment complement of surgical teams.

Industrial Oxygen Concentrators

Industrial processes use much higher pressures and flow of oxygen than medical units.
To fulfill the industrial use, the vacuum swing adsorption (VSA) is used
Industrial oxygen concentrators are available in a much higher range of capacities as compared to medical concentrators.

In this way, now we are familiar with what is oxygen concentrator and its uses.