> They don't need bulk oxygen generated ad-hoc. They need medical grade oxygen delivered in standard medical equipment that they can use in a controlled manner right away.

Right now, I believe from reports on the ground, that they need just any oxygen to hold on for 2-3 more weeks.

First hand report I got is that LO2 tankers been all around on TV, but despite that all hospitals in the area been empty of oxygen for 3-4 weeks without any resupply coming in sight, and this is in one of richest cities in India.

> Chemistry experiments won't solve this.

Tell this to people about to die. You are so cynical. 1.5-2 kg of oxygen per hour should be enough to support 2 people. 20 at least 10.

The mess, depravity, and despair I heard is such that people have already tried just anything.

Zeolite has been sold out across India for a few weeks.

Hydrogen peroxide sold out.

Any chemical which can be used to produce oxygen chemically is out of stock.

People are already blowing themselves up, and causing blackouts by following Youtube voodoo science trying to make completely unsound electrolyzer designs.

You are not getting any "proper" oxygen concentrators coming any time soon with all of above.

This design is at least less of a voodoo science than ones telling people to breath brown gas.

Please, give the medical system in India at least a tiny bit of respect and stop trying to armchair quarterback their solutions with your chemistry knowledge.

They know what they need better than you do. They're not going to MacGyver their solution by improvising an industrial chemical production process with welding equipment and random chemicals.

Being able to make oxygen in a chemistry experiment is not equivalent to being able to deliver oxygen to patients in a medically appropriate manner using standard medical equipment.

You are so sarcastic, and pricky. You will not be getting more popular like this.

I advice you to come to India, and tell it to people dying on porches of hospitals. Tell it to doctors seeing people come, and die.

> give the medical system in India at least a tiny bit of respect and stop trying to armchair quarterback

Before demanding respect, one has to learn how to behave respectfully himself.

Please stop this.

The have sufficient industrial oxygen that can be repurposed. The problem is delivery to hospitals. They need more tankers and cylinders.

> The problem is delivery to hospitals. They need more tankers and cylinders.

If the number of tankers is as much as Indian media show, then the situation should've been resolved weeks ago.

Please read my comment below on what's actually happening. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26974630

All those sudden oxygen leaks, equipment failures, or massive amounts of stored O2 disappearing is all about O2 infrastructure being in a bad state long before the Covid, and it coming to surface now.

Go to a praxair in the states and ask what the difference is: tested to 5x9's and loaded into a vacuum pulled bottle. ANY O2 at pressure is suitable to for human consumption at the surface because ANY impurities that are actually harmful would explode at 200 bar. Anything else (say from a PSA nitrox generator) would only be things like Argon.

Ad hoc O2 is better than no O2.

You can't breathe in industrial Oxygen. At least, you need a humidifier cycle in between or it's going to dry out your lungs.

The simplest bubbler solves this issue.

And then you need to filter the output of the bubbler because microparticules will be suspended in the gas flow, and then you need to sterilize it, because you don't know what's growing in the bubbler, and then cool it down (is sterilize by heating it), and then you need to regulate the pressure of volume, etc....

hacking-rig an industrial oxygen generator is a very different thing from being able to generate breathable medical oxygen - when you're done with all the steps you'll end up at something that's very expensive and difficult to maintain in the end

That's natural, all breathing apparatuses already have to be treated like that. Having to washing the bubbler once in a while if a by far the better option to dying.

> When you're done with all the steps you'll end up at something that's very expensive and difficult to maintain in the end

Your alternatives?