NEW DELHI: Amid shortage of medical grade oxygen for rising number of Covid patients in the country, Dehradun-based Indian Institute of Petroleum has come up with an indigenously developed solution for quickly setting up on-site oxygen enrichment units in hospitals itself, to save precious time during the pandemic.
Meanwhile, another Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) institution, the Durgapur-based Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI), has developed an oxygen-enrichment unit that can work quite effectively up to an altitude of 14,000 ft, helping in treating Covid patients in north-eastern states and other high-altitude terrain and battlefields in the Himalayan region.
“Oxygen enrichment units developed at CSIR’s Indian Institute of Petroleum (CSIR-IIP) are the most suitable at hospitals. It can generate up to 500 litre per minute (LPM) oxygen,” said CSIR DG Shekhar Mande.
He observed that given the large requirements in hospitals, in-house generation of medical grade oxygen offers independence from “external parties and eliminates the risk and difficulty of handling bulky cylinders”. The oxygen concentrator, developed through indigenous components, enables hospitals to reduce their cost of oxygen supply by up to 50% while ensuring 24x7 operation with minimum manpower requirement. At 500 LPM capacity, it can cater to the needs of 5 to 25 critical Covid patients.
“Compared to both cylinders and liquid oxygen (LOX), this is considerably lower in delivered cost per litre of oxygen,” said Anjan Ray, director, CSIR-IIP while noting how medical grade oxygen can be delivered at about Rs 13 per litre — much lower than the government’s capped price. It can be set up on 50-100 sq ft within hospitals.