Development of Portable Oxygen Concentrator - A Review

The Covid-19 Pandemic, with its first ever reported case in the Wuhan province of China in the year 2019, has led to a newfound global demand for Medical Oxygen supply at a sudden and unprecedented rate. In India, people battled to breathe as oxygen demand shot up with a sudden surge in COVID-19 cases the year 2020. The additional requirement of oxygen was tried to be fulfilled by various means such as oxygen generators installed at hospitals, transported medical as well as Industrial liquid oxygen, oxygen cylinder and oxygen concentrator. During the Covid-19 outbreak, large crowds gathered outside hospitals, and many patients were treated at home, breathing with the assistance of an oxygen concentrator and cylinders. However, cylinders must be refilled, whereas unlimited supply of medical grade oxygen can be obtained by oxygen concentrator if a power backup is maintained. In addition to this, safety, cost and size are the additional features of oxygen concentrator. It is a boon for the sufferer at the initial stage or even after treatment of covid-19, which is made available anywhere. In this paper, an attempt has been made to study an oxygen concentrator in which the principle of Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) method is used for oxygen separation. In addition to this, some trends of recently evolved developments in oxygen concentration methods are also reviewed for the readers’ reference. This effort will help to develop the oxygen concentrator to fulfill the demand of oxygen at local level during the waves of Covid or similar incidences in future.