Comprehensive performance and numerical analysis of pressure swing adsorption process-based medical oxygen concentrators under various operating conditions

ABSTRACT One common application of pressure swing adsorption technology is medical oxygen concentrator (MOC) which directly produces ~ 94% O2 from air. The operating condition determines the separation efficiency of MOC and is varied with practical requirements. A better understanding of performance, mass and heat transfer inside adsorption bed at wide operating conditions is of great importance. The impacts of key operating parameters on the performances, the concentration and temperature distributions of MOC have been numerically investigated. The numerical results demonstrate that high comprehensive performances are achieved at an optimal condition with combination of adsorption pressure, product and feed flowrate and feed temperature. As adsorption pressure increases, the front of gas concentration and temperature becomes sharp, which effectively benefits for improving the performance. It is nearly identical shapes of nitrogen concentration and gas temperature profiles after adsorption and the profiles are pushed forward near production end with increasing of product flowrates and decreasing of feed flowrates. The increasing of feed temperature is beneficial to improve the performance. However, the adverse mass transfer and thermal effects are dominant at very high pressures, flowrates and temperatures conditions and this variation increases the unit power of MOC.