india

Updated: Apr 24, 2020 19:06 IST

In its latest offering to combat the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has stepped forward to provide medical oxygen plants to hospitals in far-flung areas to generate their own oxygen supply, two government officials said on Friday.

The oxygen generating system is an offshoot of a critical system on board the homegrown Tejas light combat aircraft and it utilises “the pressure swing adsorption technique and molecular sieve technology” to generate oxygen directly from atmospheric air, said the first official cited above.

“The oxygen plants will help provide medical-grade oxygen supply during the corona pandemic in hospitals in urban, rural and far-flung areas. The installation of these plants will reduce the dependence of hospitals on oxygen cylinders. They will be of great help in high altitude and inaccessible remote areas,” the official said.

The technology has been approved by Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification, a regulatory body under DRDO.

The oxygen generator system has been developed by Bengaluru-based Defence Bioengineering and Electro-medical Laboratory (DEBEL, a DRDO unit) and the technology has been transferred to a Coimbatore-based private firm.

The firm has the capability to install four plants in two weeks, 20 in five weeks and production can be ramped up if required, said the second officer.

“The benefits include reduced logistics of transporting cylinders to remote areas. The plants will ensure low cost, continuous and reliable oxygen supply round the clock,” he said.

The technology is in service with the army which has installed oxygen plants at some of its facilities in Ladakh and the North-east. The plants can also be used for the filling up oxygen cylinders. Each plant can fill 47 litre (water capacity) cylinders at the rate of 60 per day, he said.

The DRDO is among the several government agencies that have been at the forefront of the fight against the coronavirus disease, having developed several products to combat the pandemic including ventilators, personal protective equipment (PPE) kits, large area sanitisation solutions and Covid-19 sample collection kiosks.

Defence minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday unveiled, via video conference, a mobile virology research and diagnostics laboratory (MVRDL) that will speed up coronavirus disease screening and other Covid-19 research and development activities. The MVRDL has been developed by the DRDO, Hyderabad-based Employees’ State Insurance Corporation hospital and the private industry.

The DRDO last week shifted a key testing facility for carrying out quality checks on PPE kits from Gwalior to New Delhi to cut down delays and ensure faster delivery of the safety gear to healthcare workers battling Covid-19.