Oxygen availability and coronavirus

[dmaziuk]

Gotta wonder how much medical oxygen is being supplied by portable concentrators, too: they may be too expensive to run on a dive-shop scale, but as I understand it they offer a number of advantages in a hospital setting.

 

[KevinNM]

Gotta wonder how much medical oxygen is being supplied by portable concentrators, too: they may be too expensive to run on a dive-shop scale, but as I understand it they offer a number of advantages in a hospital setting.

I’m told the drawback for oxygen concentrators for diving purposes is it also concentrates the argon. Not a big deal at armospheric presure, but it’s narcotic at depth. Not sure how much a problem it is in reality.

 

[broncobowsher]

The oxygen concentrators should be considered nitrogen strippers. You remove the Nitrogen and the oxygen gets about 4½ times more concentrated. Trouble is the Argon is there as well, also 4½ times more concentrated. Argon is very narcotic at depth.

The only place I remember a concentrator in action is Blue Lagoon in Truk. And when they run it hard, it gets a little weak. 90% O2 is good for them, it can drop into the 80s. A bummer when you want real O2. It was also brought up that the Conception had a concentrator on it and not bottles of O2 for Nitrox. Sometime I want to put my Divesoft on O2 from a concentrator. I know it will read Argon content. I wonder if it can read what is in concentrated O2?

But overall getting O2 today shouldn't be an issue of supply. Delivery I can see. Retail store front is probably closed. Deliveries are for critical customers. Dive shop has what they have left and are not going to get any more until the supplier opens the front door for walk in or the staff is allowed to deliver to more than critical customers.

 

[BRT]

The oxygen concentrators should be considered nitrogen strippers. You remove the Nitrogen and the oxygen gets about 4½ times more concentrated. Trouble is the Argon is there as well, also 4½ times more concentrated. Argon is very narcotic at depth.

The only place I remember a concentrator in action is Blue Lagoon in Truk. And when they run it hard, it gets a little weak. 90% O2 is good for them, it can drop into the 80s. A bummer when you want real O2. It was also brought up that the Conception had a concentrator on it and not bottles of O2 for Nitrox. Sometime I want to put my Divesoft on O2 from a concentrator. I know it will read Argon content. I wonder if it can read what is in concentrated O2?

But overall getting O2 today shouldn't be an issue of supply. Delivery I can see. Retail store front is probably closed. Deliveries are for critical customers. Dive shop has what they have left and are not going to get any more until the supplier opens the front door for walk in or the staff is allowed to deliver to more than critical customers.

Lots of dive shops use membranes to screen out some nitrogen and make nitrox.

 

[The Chairman]

Airgas would love for me to stop by and pick up a bottle... they're kinda lonely today.

 

[dmaziuk]

Google says typical hospital nasal feed is 28-44% O2. They rarely need 90%, that's part of the reason concentrators work for them.

 

[Seaweed Doc]

Google says typical hospital nasal feed is 28-44% O2. They rarely need 90%, that's part of the reason concentrators work for them.

I think that's a "delivered to patient" proportion. That is, nasal canulae attached to a 100% system only get the patient 28-44% oxygen because the patient inhales some air around the canulae. They've got a pretty low flow rate, per Dr. Wikipedia.

 

[Wookie]

I bought a 300 of ABO today at Airgas. I asked about a shortage because of Corona. They looked at me like I was stupid, and told me that ABO isn’t medical oxygen, and there wasn’t a shortage of medical oxygen either. $79 bucks

 

[Sue J]

Dive shops are non-essential businesses here but I think a couple of them fancy themselves as suppliers for first responders so are trying to stay open. Not sure why firefighters need to buy air from a dive shop but...

My son's shop fills all the tanks for the divers at the local Seaquarium. Those divers are essential to the health and safety of many of the animals.

 

[rjack321]

My son's shop fills all the tanks for the divers at the local Seaquarium. Those divers are essential to the health and safety of many of the animals.

Seattle aquarium has their own compressor. And those divers dont actually use tanks, they carry AL63s as backup gas but the main breathing supply is banked air via surface supply to a full face mask.
Tacoma/Point Defiance Aquarium has such a shallow main tank I'm not sure they use divers at all. If they do its a rare thing, not like the 4 divers/day used by Seattle aquarium.