SBIR-STTR Award

In order to address this urgent need, ChromoLogic LLC (CL) proposes to develop a ceramic membrane based portable oxygen generator (CEMPOG) to support the supply of medical grade oxygen for FSTs. Unlike the regular membrane separation process, CEMPOG adopts mixed ionic–electronic conducting (MIEC) ceramic membrane to generate ultrapure O2 from ambient air, in which the oxygen molecules absorbed on the membrane surface are catalytically disassociated in oxygen ions and the ions diffuse through the oxygen vacancies of perovskite oxides under a pressure gradient followed by recombination of ions and desorption of oxygen molecules on the permeate. To maintain the high oxygen permeation and to densify the membrane barrier, silver nanoparticles will be doped into the perovskite oxides before hollow fiber membrane (HFM) fabrication rather than be coated on HFM surface. To control the energy consumption for pre-heating input air and entire HFM reactor, alternating current (AC) will be added at HFM tips to rapidly heat HFM surface over 850 ºC combining to the heat exchanger, temperature of the generated medical grade oxygen will be lower than 35 ºC.

In order to address this urgent need, ChromoLogic LLC (CL) proposes to develop a ceramic membrane based portable oxygen generator (CEMPOG) to support the supply of medical grade oxygen for forward surgical teams. Unlike the regular membrane separation process, CEMPOG adopts mixed ionic–electronic conducting (MIEC) ceramic membrane to generate ultrapure O2 from ambient air, in which the oxygen molecules absorbed on the membrane surface are catalytically disassociated in oxygen ions and the ions diffuse through the oxygen vacancies of perovskite oxides under a pressure gradient followed by recombination of ions and desorption of oxygen molecules on the permeate. The CEMPOG Phase I prototype exhibited capability to provide 95.6% O2 with ambient air as the only feedstock. Electric current is assigned to direct heat membrane surface up to 900 ºC to initialize and maintain the reaction. To control the energy consumption for pre-heating input air and entire HFM reactor, heat exchangers are applied to cool the product temperature down to 35 ºC.