As cases of COVID-19 in India surge to unprecedented highs, there have been fatal shortages in medical-grade oxygen.
Working to alleviate this crisis, Professor Mahesh Bandi, who leads the Nonlinear and Non-equilibrium Physics Unit at OIST and is currently located in Hyderabad, India, has used locally sourced materials to design and build two devices that can produce medical-grade oxygen.
The larger device can produce just over 100 liters of medical-grade oxygen per minute, while the smaller, portable device can supply 9 liters per minute.
Instructions to build the device have been published on his website page as "DIY Oxygen Concentrator" and so far, five incubators, three non-governmental organizations and six academic teams across India have started building and shipping concentrators to those in desperate need of medical-grade oxygen.
“It’s incredible to hear that people have already started to make their own devices,” said Prof. Bandi. “These devices may seem complicated, but actually they are quite simple and can be the difference between life and death for those with severe COVID-19. Every life saved through these devices that might otherwise have been lost, makes the effort a worthy one.”
Read more about his innovation in the OIST web article "OIST Professor Mahesh Bandi engineers DIY oxygen concentrator".