L'air Liquide, Soci&#xe9;t&#xe9; Anonyme Pour L'etude Et L'exploitation Des Proc&#xe9;d&#xe9;s Georges Claude

L'air Liquide, Societe Anonyme a Directoire Et Conseil De Surveillance Pour L'etude Et L'exploitation Des Procedes Georges Claude

Anne Dubois

Christian Monereau

Nathalie Derive

Xavier Vigor

Pierre Bodelin

An oxygen concentrator portable by a patient, permitting producing a flow of gas containing 50% to 95% of oxygen from air, comprising air compression device, elements for gas separation by adsorption with pressure variations, and electrical energy storage unit keeping its charge for at least 30 minutes, the concentrator having a total weight less than 10 kg. Preferably, the gas separation elements are a PSA system using a zeolite X exchanged with lithium, as the adsorbent.

Portable oxygen concentrator

A repressurization phase of an adsorber comprises a step of first countercurrent repressurization with at least gas from a first co-current decompression of another adsorber, this phase ending in a step of co-current production. Immediately following the first countercurrent repressurization step, air is introduced co-current into the adsorber.

Process for the production of oxygen by adsorption with transatmospheric pressure variation

The cycle employed is of the transatmospheric type with the use of a production buffer tank (C,), and with a purge/elution phase close to the low pressure in which gas output by another adsorber in the first cocurrent decompression phase is introduced in countercurrent into the adsorber (A, B) and, simultaneously, the countercurrent pumping is continued. During the production step, the oxygen produced is also sent into an auxiliary tank (C,), and the gas contained in this auxiliary tank is, with regard to the adsorber, used solely during a fraction of the pressurization phase of the adsorber.

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Le Chesnay, France

Anne Dubois