Since the typical composition of ambient air is 21% oxygen and 78% nitrogen, the most economical way to increase the concentration of oxygen in ambient air is to remove the nitrogen component from it.

As a side benefit of removing the nitrogen from the ozone generator gas feed source, the nitrogen oxide and the nitric acid byproduct is also removed effectively reducing the amount of maintenance and scheduled service work typically required to remove such byproducts from inside the ozone generator corona discharge chambers.

The Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) Process

The Pressure Swing Absorption (PSA) Process

The PSA oxygen process uses a special material called zeolite to remove the nitrogen from the ambient air. Zeolite is used as it absorbs the nitrogen when subjected to a high pressure while releasing the absorbed nitrogen when the pressure drops.

The PSA process works by feeding the ambient air into a pressurized chamber containing zeolite. The nitrogen is absorbed by the zeolite while the oxygen is further passed through to the storage tank. When the zeolite is saturated where it can no longer effectively absorb the nitrogen, the chamber is depressurized. When the chamber is in the depressurized state, the nitrogen is released by the zeolite medium and vacates the system. The chamber is than re-pressurized and the cycle is repeated over and over generating purified oxygen for the oxygen fed ozone generator or any other application requiring the high purity oxygen gas feed.

Because of this simple design principle the PSA generators require very little maintenance and as such are a favorite choice for the on-site commercial and industrial oxygen purification process (the oxygen is purified on-site versus transported from outside in bottles therefore lowering the total operating cost of the process).

PSA Oxygen Concentrators and Ozone Generators

PSA Oxygen Concentrators usually go hand-in-hand with any ozone generator application where the gas feed is oxygen and not ambient air.

The output of the PSA oxygen generator is measured in the SCFH (standard cubic feet per hour). While the overall principle remains the same for all manufacturers, different manufacturers will use different designs resulting in different footprints as well as different capacities from one manufacturer to another as well as from one model to another.

To select a proper oxygen concentrator for your ozone generator application you will need to know the requirements of your ozone generator. It is typically recommended that you size your oxygen concentrator slightly larger than the current intake requirement of your ozone generator. While ozone generators can be engineered to be expandable (modular design, simply add extra ozone generator unit to your application), expanding the production capacity of the oxygen concentrator is a much harder task to accomplish and usually requires replacing the entire oxygen concentrator assembly.

If you have an application that requires an oxygen concentrator and need help sizing a unit please contact our Ozmotics representative at 1-877-386-3763.