Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a serious public health problem that is responsible for more than 500,000 hospitalizations, 100,000 deaths, and $15 billion in direct costs of medical care in the U.S. each year. In addition, millions of Americans are disabled by lung disease. It is estimated that more than 16 million people have undiagnosed COPD. Patients, whom have developed emphysema or obstructive bronchitis or who are afflicted with long-standing, low, blood-oxygen levels (chronic hypoxemia), typically require supplemental oxygen. Oxygen concentrators--electrically powered mechanical devices that extract oxygen from air by a process known as Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA)--are the most prevalent devices used to provide supplemental oxygen (0.5 - 3.0 liters per minute). When low-flow supplemental oxygen is prescribed for the treatment of COPD or chronic hypoxemia, a patient is provided with a stationary oxygen concentrator for use in their home, plus several small tanks of gaseous oxygen and accessories (an oxygen conserving device & pressure regulator) for ambulation or excursions outside their home, including airline travel. SeQual Technologies has developed an advanced PSA gas separation system for the generation of oxygen for medical applications. This proprietary system incorporates a rapid vacuum-pressure-swing adsorption process that enables SeQual to provide a PSA unit with both the highest recovery (the ratio of output oxygen molecules to input oxygen molecules) and the greatest productivity (the oxygen output flow rate per unit volume of the system) of any medical oxygen concentrator. The Company's proprietary PSA devices--in combination with state-of-the-art, high efficiency, lightweight motors and compressors--have enabled SeQual to produce a unique, portable, battery-operated, oxygen concentrator system. SeQual's continued efforts remain in the improvement of the efficiency, productivity and recovery of oxygen molecules during the PSA process to effectively miniaturize the oxygen generation device that will lead to a very small scale portable oxygen concentrator that can deliver continuous oxygen to a patient at all times. The focus of this research is on novel monolithic structured adsorbents. The study proposes to characterize the surface area of the structures, study the effectiveness of the unique pressure swing adsorption cycles and parameters and design a very small system for the concentration of oxygen.
