Hot topic: Opening the door to onsite oxygen

Oxygen is on the frontline too, and in hot demand. Medical oxygen is being used in its most critical form in treating coronavirus patients, in the areas of respiration, incident response and life support. Right now it’s about that getting that oxygen into patients and keeping their vital functions active.

With such a spotlight on medical oxygen and questions over supply chain stability to meet current and anticipated demand, does this bring greater attention to a less utilised means of oxygen supply, onsite generation via pressure swing adsorption (PSA)?

A third way

Oxygen in the medical field has traditionally been produced centrally at the ASU(s) and then distributed in liquid form, or as a gas via cylinders, to the customer.

Both of these means, and indeed a combination of them, are commonplace in the healthcare sector and especially so during this current pandemic where significant supplemental volumes of oxygen are required and portable supply is also necessary to assist first responders and equip makeshift wards and field hospitals.

Hot topic: Understanding medical oxygen

An alternative and increasingly popular means of oxygen generation exists in the medical market, however, in the form of pressure swing adsorption (PSA).

Though commercialised in the 1970s, PSA oxygen concentrators for the supply of medical gas distribution systems have grown on the worldwide market in the last 25 years in particular. As the oxygen is produced onsite, without delivery and storage, medical oxygen generators have convinced many hospitals and healthcare facilities in North America, Africa, Middle East, Asia, and in recent years Europe, that they are able to supply medical oxygen at a competitive price compared to liquid oxygen or cylinders.

Read more: An introduction to PSA medical oxygen generators

In essence, the door was certainly ajar for PSA oxygen generation in the medical market but, whilst its uptake had certainly been increasing, it had still not fully penetrated this sector. Until now? Even if onsite generation is not taken advantage of during this current crisis, the focus on oxygen supply will arguably have opened the door to PSA oxygen systems like never before.

So what is PSA oxygen generation?

PSA systems utilise commonly available components that can greatly reduce the initial capital required compared to the cryogenic production of oxygen, and offer the kind of mobility that address the varying requirements of the hospital and healthcare sector.

Their rise in this area has been facilitated by ‘monographs’ that deem the use of oxygen in the range of 90-96% purity acceptable.

The European Oxygen 93 monograph, for example, was published in April 2011 by the European Pharmacopeia which serves as a reference for standards throughout the pharmaceutical industry in Europe. With this development, medical oxygen produced by oxygen concentrators gained official recognition to become a real alternative to traditional methods of oxygen supply (liquid or high pressure cylinders) for European facilities.

Described as a ‘major evolution in the market’ when it was explored in detail by gasworld later that year, the monograph paved the way for onsite oxygen generation as a third means of meeting medical market demand. In simple terms, what it enabled was the delivery of 93% PSA-produced oxygen to hospital patients.

As our previous hot topic titled Understanding medical oxygen explained, medical oxygen has traditionally been required to be delivered at the highest possible purity (99% or higher) and fully certified as such to be able to be used. This is the standard to which all or most regional specifications around the world are built. What has been broadly accepted in recent years though, is that medical oxygen does not necessarily have to be delivered at such purities.

Liquid oxygen at 99% purity has many advantages, particularly so for applications like metal cutting for example, but not necessarily for medical applications. Some local authorities still require 99% purity oxygen due to old regulations, but with the acceptance of international monographs these older specifications are widely being revised to 93%. Medical Oxygen Purity Requirements as per US Pharmacopeia are 93 ± 3%, the same as per European Pharmacopeia. For British Pharmacopeia it is 94%. Oxygen produced by PSA medical oxygen generators meets these requirements.

Read more: Advances in onsite oxygen generation

The units also come with an analysis device which ensures the oxygen produced onsite is at any time, and in all respects, in total conformity with the requirements of the oxygen 93% monograph. In fact, any gas that may not be compliant with the monograph can never get through to the patient as the system would automatically switch to a back-up supply.

Opening the door…

Thousands of hospitals throughout the world are already equipped with an on-site oxygen production line, in emerging as well as in developed countries of all continents, all backed up the implementation of the Oxygen 93 monograph in addition to a catalogue of other standards related to medical gases and devices.

When it comes to medical oxygen, however, change is sensitive and in normal circumstances would need time to be implemented as hospitals want to have the benefit of hindsight to trust a new type of supply. Even all these years later, gasworld understands the medical market is still finding its way around this ‘new’ form of oxygen supply despite it being in full compliance with strict international standards.

There has also been lobbying in some quarters, we understand, to maintain regulations around 99% purity.

These are not normal circumstances today, however. At a time when healthcare systems are overwhelmed with oxygen demand in the fight against Covid-19, it is deemed that oxygen at 93% purity provides the same quality of care as oxygen at 99%, and it’s very much all hands on deck is that fight for survival, there is an argument to say that onsite oxygen generation could provide much-needed autonomy, flexibility and additional volume.

Furthermore, onsite oxygen production today has a necessary track record of many years and deployments globally to assess the safety and reliability of the system.

It could also be argued that beyond 2020, when the spread of coronavirus is hopefully but a painful memory for us all, these same factors of autonomy and flexibility will be relevant against a backrdrop of possible economic recession. It was by happy coincidence that the Oxygen 93 monograph was published in 2011, a period still characterised by the fallout from the 2008/9 economic crash, and the case was made back then that in such hard economic times the ‘undisputable advantages’ of the oxygen generator lay in healthcare providers having greater autonomy and being able to better optimise their operational costs.

With many widely expecting a significant – and now possibly sustained – economic recession following the effects of coronavirus globally, the same argument might well be made.