KR20190074770A - Portable High Purity Oxygen Generation System - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a portable high purity oxygen generation system, which is, in order to be used in a place where oxygen is required to be supplied at a concentration same as or higher than a certain concentration, composed in a way of passing air injected through an air injection pump through an absorption part filled with zeolite, and adsorbing nitrogen, and then purifying oxygen by passing through a polymer hollow fiber membrane in which micropores are formed, wherein the portable high purity oxygen generation system is composed to discharge nitrogen and other foreign substances that have not passed through the polymer hollow fiber membrane.

Description

[0001] Portable High Purity Oxygen Generation System [0002]

The present invention relates to an oxygen generator, and more particularly, to an oxygen generator, in which air injected through an air injection pump is passed through an absorption part filled with zeolite for use in a place where oxygen is required to be supplied at a predetermined concentration or more, To a portable high-purity oxygen generating system configured to purify oxygen through the desert and discharge nitrogen and other foreign substances that have not passed through the polymer hollow fiber membrane.

2) Oxygen generation using electrolysis, 3) PSA (pressure), 4) Oxygen production using oxygen, 4) Oxygen generation using catalyst, 4) Swing Adsorption) method.

First, the oxygen generating method using catalyst is a simple structure with a principle of generating oxygen by reacting with water with a catalyst using a bleaching agent, and it is applied to a low-priced type and generates high purity oxygen. Because it is a low-cost model, it is inconvenient to exchange the catalyst every time and is used as portable oxygen generator.

Next, the oxygen generation method using electrolysis is a principle in which oxygen and hydrogen are generated when water is electrolyzed, and the structure is very simple and generates high purity oxygen. It is the most basic and most publicly available technology, but it is not commercially available. In particular, since highly explosive hydrogen is generated, it is dangerous and the post-treatment process is complicated because hydrogen must be treated separately.

Finally, the oxygen generation method using PSA (Pressure Swing Adsorption) is the most widely used method of increasing the concentration of oxygen by adsorbing nitrogen molecules in the air by the principle of oxygen generation using an adsorbent. In addition, there is no difficulty in manufacturing due to the expiration of the basic technology, but the raw material used as the adsorbent is weak in moisture and has a disadvantage in paying attention to prevention of moisture.

FIG. 1 is a conceptual view showing the principle of a conventional oxygen generating apparatus, and the principle of operation will be briefly described as follows.

AIR BLOWER, COOLER, 2/3-TOWER, vacuum pump, etc., so that the air passing through the adsorption column is separated from water, carbon dioxide gas, liquefied hydrogen and other impurities to separate only oxygen and nitrogen. At this time, the medical oxygen generator uses the same principle, but the purity of oxygen must be purified to 90% or more.

That is, the inhaled air is composed of 20% oxygen and 80% nitrogen, and the air introduced by the AIR COMPRESSOR / BLOWER passes through the adsorbent (M / S) while nitrogen is adsorbed and oxygen is stored and used as it is. At this time, if the adsorption column is filled with nitrogen, it is flushed periodically and adsorption and regeneration are repeated using 2 to 3-tower.

In recent years, the demand for oxygen generators has increased due to the global population aging, the increase of patients with COPD and other respiratory diseases, and the demand for various industrial oxygen generators as well as medical applications is also increasing.

In particular, healthcare support for home care devices used by patients at home rather than medical facilities has expanded, and four types of medical devices including portable oxygen generators, cough inducer lending, autologous catheterization catheters, and automatic peritoneal dialysis consumables, It is also pointed out that there is a need to supply oxygen for living in an enclosed residential space as a countermeasure against fine dust which is being discussed recently.

Accordingly, it is urgently required to develop a medical oxygen generator capable of generating high purity oxygen by being a portable type product and solving the basic burden of the oxygen generator.

Korean Registered Patent No. 10-0605549 (July 20, 2006)

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in order to solve the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to reduce the size and weight of the battery to a portable level and to operate the battery efficiently without any commercial power supply for a certain period of time. And to provide a portable high purity oxygen generating system capable of generating high purity oxygen which can be utilized for medical use by generating oxygen.

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention provides a portable oxygen generating system which is housed in a case, comprising: a suction filter for sucking and discharging outside air through a suction pump, An intake unit provided with a suction muffler for attenuating the suction muffler; An oxygen outlet having a first valve for discharging a high concentration of oxygen from which nitrogen is removed upward and a nitrogen adsorbed and separated through the zeolite to the bottom, An absorber provided with a nitrogen outlet having a second valve for discharging nitrogen and a discharge silencer for attenuating noise due to nitrogen discharge; A purifier which is made of a hollow fiber membrane filter and transmits oxygen discharged from the oxygen outlet to improve purity; An oxygen sensor for measuring the oxygen concentration of the air sucked into the intake unit and the air exhausted through the oxygen outlet; a temperature and humidity sensor for measuring temperature and humidity; and a nitrogen sensor A sensor unit having a sensor; A power source unit including a battery that can be charged through an external power source, and a switching unit that is charged with the external power source and is selected to supply power through the battery; A controller receiving power from the power source unit and controlling the driving of the suction pump and the opening and closing of the first and second valves reflecting the measurement result of the sensor unit; .

The control unit may include a first storage unit storing driving information of the suction pump and opening / closing information of the second valve according to the oxygen concentration of the air sucked into the intake unit. The oxygen concentration measured through the sensor unit, It is preferable to control the suction pump, the first valve and the second valve by reflecting the opening / closing information.

The power unit may include a power source side unit for measuring a remaining power level of the battery, a calculation unit for calculating a power consumption rate according to driving of the suction pump, a power supply availability time and an oxygen production amount of the battery, A power management unit for controlling the suction pump and the second valve so as to maximize the oxygen producible amount in consideration of the possible time, and an informing unit for informing the user of the remaining amount of the battery and the available time.

The controller may further include a second storage unit for storing the oxygen concentration of the air sucked into the intake unit, the intake pump driving time, the oxygen generation amount and the consumed energy amount discharged to the oxygen discharge port in accordance with time, And an optimizing unit for analyzing the stored data to calculate drive information of the intake pump having the highest oxygen generation amount with respect to the consumed energy and information on opening and closing of the first valve and the second valve to update the first storage unit.

The present invention can be miniaturized and lightweight at a portable level, and can be operated without any need for commercial power supply for a certain period of time due to efficient operation of the battery. It is possible to produce high purity oxygen by removing nitrogen and foreign substances through zeolite and hollow fiber membrane have.

1 is a conceptual view showing the principle of a conventional oxygen generator,
2 is a perspective view illustrating an internal configuration according to an embodiment of the present invention,
3 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration and a connection relationship according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Hereinafter, the configuration of the portable high purity oxygen generating system of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration and a connection relationship according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a portable oxygen generator The system 100 includes a suction unit 110, an absorption unit 120, a purification unit 130, a sensor unit 140, a power source unit 150, and a control unit 160 in a box- And is built in.

As the oxygen generating system according to the present invention is miniaturized and lightweight, the case 100 can be easily moved and used regardless of time and place. The oxygen generating system according to the present invention can be used as a bag having a handle or a shoulder strap, And can be made in the form of a carrier equipped with wheels.

The suction unit 110 is a small air compressor. The suction unit 110 basically sucks and pressurizes external air through a suction pump 111 to supply the compressed air to the absorber 120. On the suction side, A suction filter 112 for filtering a harmful gas or other gaseous component including minute foreign substances in the air to be sucked in, a suction filter 112 for attenuating the noise generated from the suction pump 111 to a level of 50 dBA, A silencer 113 is installed.

Typically, the air is composed of more than 70% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, and other residual gas, so that the remaining gas other than nitrogen and oxygen can be removed through the suction filter 112.

In order to reduce noise, the suction pump 111 is installed inside the case 100 through a material capable of absorbing vibrations, and includes the suction filter 112 in which the entirety of the case 100 sucks the outside air, Except for the oxygen outlet 121 and the nitrogen outlet 123 which will be described later, has a structure in which the entire inner wall of the case is surrounded by the sound absorbing material.

In order to minimize the noise emitted from the suction pump 111 to the outside through the suction filter 112, the suction muffler 113 is arranged such that a plurality of plate-shaped sound absorbing materials are spaced apart from each other with an interval A zigzag air passage is formed and the air is sucked but the noise can be absorbed.

The absorber 120 is configured to adsorb nitrogen, which occupies the largest portion of the air discharged from the intake unit 110, to improve the purity of oxygen, which occupies the next largest proportion. An oxygen outlet 121 having a first valve 122 is formed on the upper side to discharge nitrogen at a high concentration through which nitrogen is removed and an oxygen outlet 121 having a first valve 122 is formed through the zeolite, A nitrogen outlet 123 having a second valve 124 is formed to discharge the separated nitrogen.

Here, the first valve 122 and the second valve 124 are each a check valve having a function of preventing reverse flow of oxygen and nitrogen, and a solenoid valve opened / closed through a control signal, and the second valve 124 The exhaust silencer 125 is installed to exhaust nitrogen from the inside of the absorber 120 at a pressure higher than atmospheric pressure and attenuate the noise as noise is generated.

Like the suction muffler 113, the exhaust muffler 125 has a structure in which a plurality of plate-shaped sound absorbers are arranged so as to be spaced apart from each other with a space therebetween to form a zigzag nitrogen passage and absorb noise, The reduction of nitrogen is accompanied by noise reduction through the sound absorbing material.

The purification unit 130 is composed of a hollow fiber membrane filter which permeates oxygen discharged from the oxygen outlet and improves the purity. The oxygen saturation concentration of the conventional zeolite is about 80 to 90% The purity can be increased to 95% or more and the medical chart of the present invention can be utilized.

That is, as described above, when foreign substances or other gases are removed through the suction filter 112, more than 70% of nitrogen is adsorbed as it passes through the absorber 120, and the remaining 20% 1 valve 122 and the oxygen outlet 121. The nitrogen adsorbed through the zeolite is discharged to the outside through the second valve 124 and the nitrogen outlet 123 at an appropriate timing.

However, when the oxygen concentration actually measured in the conventional oxygen generator is measured, it is about 80 to 90%, which is different from the theoretical value. An important factor in the target medical oxygen generator according to the present invention is the oxygen concentration, which can be generally approved if the concentration of oxygen in the medical device is 90% or more. However, since the effect can be further recognized by increasing the saturated oxygen concentration, The purification section 130, which is a hollow fiber membrane filter, is installed at the oxygen outlet as shown in FIG.

This is a method using only a filter that permeates oxygen only. By applying this principle at the time of general air suction, the oxygen concentration of about 30% can be obtained and it is possible to reduce the amount of zeolite by this, Portable products.

The sensor unit 140 includes an oxygen sensor 141 for measuring oxygen concentrations of air sucked into the intake unit 110 and air discharged through the oxygen outlet 121, A temperature and humidity sensor 142 for measuring the temperature and humidity of the air sucked into the absorber 120 and a nitrogen sensor 143 for measuring the nitrogen pressure and the concentration in the absorber 120, And the timing of discharging the nitrogen in the absorber 120 through the second valve 124 and the nitrogen outlet 123 so that efficient system operation can be performed do.

The power supply unit 150 is configured to supply power necessary for overall control of the oxygen generation process including the driving of the suction pump 111. In accordance with the present invention, (151), and a switching unit (152) for charging the battery (151) together with an external power supply or selecting a power supply through the battery (151) The power can be supplied through the battery 151 during the portable operation, and the battery can be used for a predetermined time without restriction.

The control unit 160 receives power from the power supply unit 150 in a configuration corresponding to the main control board in the system of the present invention and controls the driving of the suction pump 111 The first valve 122 and the second valve 124 to control the opening and closing of the first valve 122 and the second valve 124 so as to generate and supply oxygen of high purity.

The first valve 122 is shut off at a predetermined time, the second valve 124 is opened, and the absorption unit (not shown) is operated by simply driving the suction pump 111 to suck air, 120 may be controlled in various manners such as discharging accumulated nitrogen and then opening the first valve 122 and shutting off the second valve 124 to supply high purity oxygen, The control unit 160 controls the driving unit 150 so as to optimize the amount of oxygen generated by the theoretical and experimental values according to the oxygen concentration and the temperature and humidity of the air sucked into the intake unit 110, Nitrogen concentration and pressure measured through the sensor unit 140 and the temperature and humidity measured in the state where the first storage unit 161 storing the opening and closing information of the first valve 122 and the second valve 124 is stored Stored in the first storage unit 161 It can be controlled to reflect group information and the driving opening information.

In addition, when the battery 151 is operated from the outside, the power supply unit 153 is connected to the power supply unit so as to prevent the oxygen supply or the oxygen supply from being interrupted when the power is exhausted, The power management unit 155, and the notification unit 156 may be added to the configuration of the display unit 154, the display unit 154, the power management unit 155,

The power source side unit 153 measures a remaining amount of power charged by the voltage and current corresponding to the capacity of the battery 151. [

The calculating unit 154 calculates the power consumption of the suction pump 111 based on the driving power of the suction pump 111 and the power consumption of the suction pump 111, The speed of the battery 151, the power supply availability time of the battery 151, and the oxygen producible amount. For this calculation, it is necessary to input the basic information such as the power consumption of the suction pump 111 and the opening and closing of the first valve 122 and the second valve 124 and the specification of the battery 151.

The power management unit 155 controls the suction pump 111 and the first pump 150 in conjunction with the control unit 160 to maximize the oxygen production capacity in consideration of the power supply available time calculated through the calculation unit 154. [ Thereby controlling and managing the valve 122 and the second valve 124.

For example, when the concentration of oxygen discharged through the oxygen outlet 121 is lowered while the pressure of the absorber 120 is raised during driving of the suction pump 111, the suction pump 111 is stopped 1 valve 122 is closed and the second valve 124 is opened to sufficiently exhaust the nitrogen in the absorber 120. At this time, if the operation is stopped in a state where oxygen of high purity is discharged through the oxygen outlet 121, the efficiency is lowered. Therefore, effective power management is possible by controlling the timing of nitrogen discharge relative to the remaining power

The notification unit 156 is configured to recognize the remaining amount of the battery 151 and the usable time and informs the user of the remaining amount of the battery 151 and a usable time The user can easily recognize the available time.

In addition, since the use pattern of the oxygen generated by each user may differ, the control unit 160 controls the oxygen concentration of the air sucked into the intake unit 110, A second storage section 162 for storing the driving time of the intake pump 111 and the oxygen generation amount and the consumption power amount discharged to the oxygen discharge port 121 according to time; And an optimizing unit 163 for calculating the driving information of the intake pump 111 having the highest oxygen generation amount with respect to the consumed energy and updating the first storage unit 161. [

The amount of generated oxygen can be grasped through the oxygen concentration discharged to the oxygen outlet 121 measured through the oxygen sensor. When oxygen is used in a period of 30 minutes, for example, The optimized operation information and the opening / closing information are calculated, and then the optimization operation can be performed according to the user's pattern without any additional setting.

It is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiment, but is capable of many modifications and variations within the scope of the appended claims. It is self-evident.

100: Case 110:
111: Suction pump 112: Suction filter
113: suction muffler 120: absorption part
121: Oxygen outlet port 122: First valve
123: nitrogen outlet 124: second valve
125: Exhaust silencer 130: Purification section
140: sensor part 141: oxygen sensor
142: Temperature and humidity sensor 143: Nitrogen sensor
150: Power source 151: Battery
152: switching section 153: power source side section
154: Calculator 155: Power management unit
156: notification unit 160: control unit
161: first storage unit 162: second storage unit
163:

Claims (4)

In the portable oxygen generating system stored in the case 100,
And a suction muffler (113) for attenuating the noise of the suction pump (111), wherein the suction muffler (113) is provided for sucking outside air through the suction pump (111) (110);
An oxygen outlet 121 having a first valve 122 to fill the zeolite that adsorbs nitrogen in the air discharged from the intake unit 110 and to discharge a high concentration of oxygen from which nitrogen has been removed upward, A nitrogen outlet 123 having a second valve 124 for exhausting the nitrogen adsorbed and separated through the zeolite, and an exhaust silencer 125 for attenuating noise due to nitrogen discharge.
A refining unit 130 made of a hollow fiber membrane filter and permeable to oxygen discharged from the oxygen outlet 121 to improve purity;
An oxygen sensor 141 for measuring the oxygen concentration of the air sucked into the intake unit 110 and the oxygen discharged through the oxygen outlet 121, a temperature and humidity sensor 142 for measuring temperature and humidity, A sensor unit 140 having a nitrogen sensor 143 measuring the pressure and concentration of nitrogen in the absorber 120;
A power supply unit 150 including a battery 151 that can be charged through an external power source and a switching unit 152 that charges the battery 151 together with an external power supply and is selected to supply power through the battery 151, ;
The controller 120 controls the operation of the suction pump 111 and the opening and closing of the first valve 122 and the second valve 124 by receiving power from the power source unit 150 and reflecting the measurement result of the sensor unit 140. [ A control unit 160 for controlling the control unit 160; And the oxygen concentration of the oxygen-containing gas.
The method according to claim 1,
The control unit 160 controls the first storage unit 161 storing the drive information of the suction pump 111 and the opening and closing information of the second valve 124 according to the oxygen concentration of the air sucked into the intake unit 110 And controls the suction pump 111, the first valve 122 and the second valve 124 by reflecting the oxygen concentration measured through the sensor unit 140 and the driving information and the opening and closing information. Portable high purity oxygen generating system.
3. The method of claim 2,
The power supply unit 150 includes a power supply side unit 153 for measuring the remaining power of the battery 151, a power consumption rate for driving the suction pump 111, A power management unit (control unit) 154 for controlling the suction pump 111 and the second valve 124 so as to maximize the oxygen producible amount in consideration of the calculated power supply possible time 155), and a notification unit (156) for informing a user of the remaining amount of the battery (151) and the usable time of the battery (151).
The method of claim 3,
The control unit 160 controls the oxygen concentration of the air sucked into the intake unit 110, the driving time of the intake pump 111, and the oxygen generation amount and the consumed energy amount discharged to the oxygen discharge port 121, 2 storage unit 162 and the data stored in the second storage unit 162 to calculate driving information of the intake pump 111 having the highest amount of oxygen generation with respect to the consumed energy and the driving information of the first valve 122 and the second valve Further comprising an optimizing unit (163) for calculating the opening / closing information of the first storage unit (161) and the opening / closing information of the first storage unit (161).

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