Currently in the United States, approximately one million people use Home Oxygen Therapy (HOT), and yearly expenditures on HOT exceed 1.5 billion dollars. Most HOT patients use in-situ oxygen generation systems, and the majority of these systems are based on Molecular Sieve Oxygen Generator (MSOG) technology. MSOG systems are sub-optimal in that they are noisy, unreliable, heavy, and expensive, and the purity of the oxygen product degrades with time. The objective of the proposed program is to eliminate the problems associated with MSOGs and reduce HOT costs by developing a Ceramic Oxygen Generating System (COGS). COGS are completely solid-state devices consisting of an oxygen-conducting ceramic membrane across which oxygen ions flow when a differential voltage is applied. COGS do not require a compressor like a MSOG and, thereby, improve reliability and cost. COGS can consistently provide high-purity oxygen (>99%). In Phase I, Create developed and demonstrated an approach for producing thin, non-self-supporting oxygen ion conducting membranes using a proprietary process, the key to a commercially superior COGS, and a conceptual design for a 4 slpm, single-user COGS was developed. In Phase II, we will develop a prototype unit and refine the manufacturing processes to decrease cost.
