Premier institute says a nitrogen plant can be repurposed in 48 hours, requests govt, NGOs to get in touch with its team that led a pilot project
A repurposed nitrogen plant for oxygen production at IIT-B
Amid India’s race against time to generate more oxygen for gasping COVID patients, IIT-Bombay has successfully demonstrated the conversion of a nitrogen generator to an oxygen generator. With this concept, several nitrogen plants can be repurposed to produce oxygen in a short span of time.
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Prof Milind Atrey, Dean (R&D), who also specialises in Cryogenic Engineering along with Tata Consulting Engineers (TCE) fined-tuned a pressure swing adsorption (PSA) nitrogen unit to produce oxygen by changing the molecular sieves from carbon to zeolite. India has several of these plants that suck in nitrogen from the air. “Therefore, each of them [nitrogen units] has the potential of being converted to an oxygen generator to tide over the current emergency,” said IIT-B in a release on Thursday.
While the proof of concept has been demonstrated at IIT-Bombay’s laboratory, the technology institute has urged implementation bodies to set it up at different locations, wherever there is an existing nitrogen plant or air compressor.
Mumbai-based Spantech Engineers that deal with PSA nitrogen and oxygen production, installed the required components for the test in three days.
“Initial tests have shown promising results. Oxygen production could be achieved at 3.5 atmospheric pressure with a purity level of 93-96 per cent. This gaseous oxygen can be utilised for COVID related needs across existing hospitals and upcoming COVID specific facilities by providing a continuous supply of oxygen,” said Prof. Atrey, adding that while it is a known concept, a proof of concept is demonstrated within a short span of time with this experiment at the IIT-Bombay campus which already had a nitrogen plant for research.
“With the huge need for oxygen currently, nitrogen generation can be put on hold for now and those same plants can be easily converted to generate oxygen,” said Prof Atrey.
The director of the institute, Prof. Subhasis Chaudhury, wrote on Facebook, “We encourage and request various government authorities, NGOs, and private companies to contact Prof Atrey at IIT-Bombay, and Tata Consulting Engineers to know more about this project and its rapid adoption across the country.” He said the plant can be set up in 48 hours.
93-96 per cent
Purity level of oxygen made from nitrogen plant
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