The country's premier defence research agency DRDO plans to set up 500 medical oxygen plants within three months. These plants will be set up under the PM-CARES fund.
India is battling surging cases of COVID-19 and for the first time, more than 3,000 deaths were reported in a single day across the country.
According to the DRDO, Medical Oxygen Plant (MOP) technology, developed for On‐Board Oxygen Generation for its Light Combat Aircraft, Tejas, by the Bengaluru-based Defence Bioengineering and Electromedical Laboratory (DEBEL), DRDO will now help in fighting the current crisis of oxygen for COVID-19 patients.
An official said that the oxygen plant is designed for a capacity of 1,000 litres per minute (LPM) and can cater to 190 patients at a flow rate of 5 LPM and charge 195 cylinders per day.
The installation of this plant will help in avoiding hospital dependency on scarce oxygen cylinders especially at high altitude and inaccessible remote areas. MOP has already been installed at some of the Army sites in north east and Leh-Ladakh region. The plant complies with International Standards like ISO 1008, European, US and Indian Pharmacopeia. Site preparation for 5 plants to be installed in Delhi/NCR region has already been initiated.
Transfer of Technology has been done to M/s Tata Advanced Systems Limited, Bengaluru and M/s Trident Pneumatics Pvt. Ltd., Coimbatore, who will be producing 380 plants for installation across various hospitals in the country. 120 plants of 500 LPM capacity will be produced by industries working with Indian Institute of Petroleum, Dehradun, belonging to CSIR.
Oxygen is a very important clinical gas in healthcare centres and hospitals for treatment of COVID‐19 patients. MOP technology is capable of generating oxygen with 93±3 per cent concentration which can be directly supplied to hospital beds or can be used to fill medical oxygen cylinders. It utilises Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) technique and Molecular Sieve (Zeolite) technology to generate oxygen directly from atmospheric air.
"The MOP technology will be useful to provide oxygen supply during COVID-19 pandemic in hospitals in urban and rural areas," a DRDO official said, while adding that the hospitals will be able to generate on-site medical oxygen, in a cost-effective manner with this oxygen plant rather than depending on sourcing it from other places.
While Defence minister Rajnath Singh appreciated DRDO for using the MOP technology to generate much needed oxygen for COVID-19 patients, Head of DRDO Dr Satheesh Reddy has assured the support of DRDO for use of the technology by hospitals and other health agencies.
Meanwhile, in another significant development, LCA Tejas added the 5th generation Python 5 air-to-air missile in its weapons capability. The test firing at Goa was completed and was aimed to validate enhanced capability of the already integrated Derby Beyong Visual Range (BVR) air-to-air missiles on Tejas.