Researchers come up with solutions to tackle shortage of oxygen

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) writes in a press release that there are already signs of increasing shortages of masks and breathing apparatus due to the spread of the coronavirus. The university is, however, fearful of an additional bottleneck: “A rigorous analysis shows that more equipment is needed to enrich oxygen”, comments Wendelin Stark, Head of the Functional Materials Lab at ETH Zurich. After all, patients with serious coronavirus symptoms require twice as much oxygen in the air that they breathe than would normally be the case in order to ensure that their bodies can be supplied with sufficient oxygen.

Researchers at ETH are now working on two solutions to avoid a potential shortage of oxygen. The first uses membrane technology to separate oxygen from nitrogen. The technology is commercialized by the ETH spin-off Unisieve. The company now intends to process the membrane into cartridges that can enrich oxygen using compressed air.

In terms of the second solution approach, researchers are publishing construction plans and manufacturing instructions for oxygen concentrators. The aim is that “oxygen concentrators can be replicated almost anywhere in the world - with materials that are available everywhere”, explains Robert Grass, who is leading the project together with Stark. However, a material named Lithium X-​zeolite is also required for these prototypes. It is relatively expensive and hard to procure. According to the researchers, it is also possible to manufacture Lithium X-​zeolite by way of a drying agent and lithium batteries. In order to produce sufficient lithium for a patient station, the researchers have calculated that three good laptop batteries and a spare room converted into a laboratory will do the job.