IIT-Bombay’s device reuses exhaled oxygen, minimises wastage

The diagram shows how reBreather works

A Team from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay has designed an easy-to-assemble oxygen mask that would enhance the lifetime of cylinders for Covid-19 patients. The innovative mechanism reuses the exhaled O2, thus reducing the number of cylinders used per patient. This would prove to be a major relief as the country is facing an acute shortage of medical oxygen.

Several students, alumni and research staff members of the IIT-B, affiliated with Tata Centre for Technology and Design, Chemical Engineering and Nex Robotics, have built a prototype that has been tested on healthy volunteers. Its hardware designs have been placed in the public domain for more to refer. The prototype, called reBreather, minimises oxygen wastage when a patient is put on assisted breathing via cylinders or centralised O2 supply in hospitals.

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Professor Santosh Noronha, core faculty of the Chemical Engineering Department at IIT Bombay and member of the team, explained, "A reBreather is a closed (or semi-closed) loop system that helps the user to inhale unused oxygen that they have just exhaled. To do this, reBreathers have a section that helps remove the CO2 in the exhaled air thereby preventing an increase in the CO2 concentration in the closed-loop system. The amount of oxygen absorbed by the user is replenished by a fresh supply of oxygen into the closed-loop. This concept has extensively been used in underwater diving breathing devices."

Assuming that a patient requiring high-flow oxygen is using a cylinder that holds 7,800 litre of pure oxygen, s/he might require approximately 9.2 cylinders a day. But with reBreather, the need can be met with just 1.09 oxygen cylinders, the institute shared. "These are approximate figures as the prototype has been tested on healthy volunteers and not on Covid-19 patients," he said.