Research Projects

According to World Health Organization (WHO), oxygen is one of the most critical medicines in the healthcare systems. Therefore, uninterrupted and reliable supply of oxygen is required in any healthcare system. The medical grade oxygen is of high purity, which require controlled environment for production, transportation and storage. There are mainly three processes namely, air-liquefaction (99.5% v/v of O2), Pressure Swing adsorption (PSA - (93±3% v/v of O2)) and oxygen concentrators (82% v/v of O2) currently employed that are suitable for medical grade oxygen production. Since, air-liquefaction process provides highest purity of oxygen at lowest cost (at large scale), it is the most preferable choice for medical grade oxygen production. In the context of purity of oxygen, water electrolysis is a renewable alternative to medical oxygen production that provides over 99% O2, and hence does not require additional purification processes. Another important point of view is the storage of oxygen; the recommended storage method is Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO). LMO is preferred because of high purity, ease of operation and low volume requirement. However, it is very costly as compared to gaseous storage method in cylinders or large tanks. Since, water electrolysis can provide high purity gaseous oxygen, it can be readily stored, which would lead to large cost saving. In addition to that all the health care systems must maintain emergency backup power supply for which it relies on diesel generator sets. Diesel generators are highly polluting prime movers. In the present proposal, a renewable energy based combined onsite oxygen production and green hydrogen generation system is proposed. The system is composed of a solar photovoltaic (PV) array for generation of renewable electricity, membrane electrolyzer for electrolysis of water to produce oxygen and hydrogen, and a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell for power backup. This system is highly scalable and flexible for operation that give high reliability of oxygen supply and long term operation. Therefore, main objective of the present proposal is to carry out a techno-economic feasibility analysis by developing a lab level prototype and demonstration of the technology. The proposed work is divided into four strategic objectives. In the first objective, it is proposed to develop a comprehensive simulation model of the system to predict its operational characteristics and performance. It is followed by a techno-economic assessment of various possible configuration of the proposed system. The two most important factors to investigate are the size of the system and use of produced hydrogen. In the third objective, a lab level experimental setup will be developed for the proposed system and further optimization studies will be performed. Finally, a prototype will be developed in the lab for demonstration of the technology.