A novel single-bed, “Snap-on” and standalone, medical oxygen concentrator design based on a rapid pressure swing adsorption process was investigated for continuous oxygen supply. The Snap-on concentrator design is easy to hook up to an existing compressed air source, and the unit can then be readily used to produce oxygen for medical applications. It is easily transportable and compared to a traditional oxygen concentrator with its dedicated compressor, the Snap-on concentrator is particularly relevant for the oxygen therapy needs of a larger number of patients in situations such as COVID-19. A commercially available LiLSX zeolite was used for the separation of oxygen from compressed ambient air. The experiments were performed at different feed air pressures using a constant supply of house air in the lab. Further, the device performance was also analyzed using a standalone medium size air compressor. The minimum bed size factor obtained with compressed house air was 100 lb/tons per day contained (TPDc) O₂ at a cycle time of 7 s, whereas the minimum bed size factor obtained with a medium size air compressor weighing about 12 lbs was 210 lb/TPD_c O₂ at a cycle time of 14.5 s under the same feed pressures of 3.1 bar at an oxygen product purity of 90%. The product oxygen flow rate was nearly double for the same amount of adsorbent when using house air for the Snap-on design. The primary reason for this significantly higher oxygen production was the substantially higher and stable air throughput capacity of a typical house air compressor that enabled rapid cycling of the process at near-constant feed pressure compared to a medium size compressor used in a medical oxygen concentrator. The oxygen recovery was approximately 34% for both cases. Thus, the Snap-on oxygen concentrator was found to be easier to build and it delivered more oxygen for medical use compared to standalone units in locations where a constant supply of compressed feed air is available. This is typically the case in facilities such as hospitals, military medical camps and cruise ships. Further, the Snap-on design offers other benefits such as ease of transportation, higher reliability and lower weight.

研究了一种基于快速变压吸附工艺的新型单床“卡扣式”独立医用氧气浓缩器设计，用于连续供氧。Snap-on 浓缩器设计很容易连接到现有的压缩空气源，然后该装置可以很容易地用于为医疗应用生产氧气。它易于运输，与带有专用压缩机的传统氧气浓缩器相比，Snap-on 浓缩器特别适合在 COVID-19 等情况下大量患者的氧气治疗需求。市售的 LiLSX 沸石用于从压缩环境空气中分离氧气。实验是在不同的进料空气压力下使用实验室中恒定供应的室内空气进行的。更远，还使用独立的中型空气压缩机对设备性能进行了分析。使用压缩室内空气获得的最小床尺寸系数为 100 磅/吨/天（TPDc）O₂，循环时间为 7 秒，而使用重约 12 磅的中型空气压缩机获得的最小床尺寸因子为 210 磅/TPD _c O ₂在 14.5 秒的循环时间下，在 3.1 巴的相同进料压力下，氧气产品纯度为 90%。当使用室内空气进行 Snap-on 设计时，相同数量的吸附剂的产品氧气流量几乎翻了一番。氧气产量显着增加的主要原因是，与医用氧气浓缩器中使用的中型压缩机相比，典型的家用空气压缩机能够在近乎恒定的进料压力下快速循环过程，从而实现更高和稳定的空气通过量。两种情况下的氧气回收率约为 34%。因此，发现 Snap-on 制氧机更容易建造，并且与在有恒定压缩原料空气供应的地方的独立装置相比，它提供了更多用于医疗用途的氧气。这通常发生在医院、军事医疗营地和游轮等设施中。此外，卡扣式设计还具有其他优势，例如便于运输、更高的可靠性和更轻的重量。