Lecture in Materials 10: Dale Taylor "Development of a Ceramic Oxygen Generator"

Ceramic Oxygen Generators (COG) will soon be available commercially and they will replace with solid state COG devices oxygen supplied in high-pressure cylinders ranging from 99.5% medical grade to 99.9999% ultra-pure grade. The devices will extract oxygen from ambient air with 100% selectivity and simultaneously compress it to 200-psig with no moving parts and essentially zero maintenance requirements. The only moving part is a small fan that circulates air through the device, which is insensitive to environmental conditions such as humidity, temperature, altitude, and dust.

They can even provide safe sterile oxygen in the presence of a chemical or biological attack. This talk focuses on the development of the electrochemical cell with its thin non-permeable ceramic membrane and its materials of construction and the development of processes for its fabrication, as well as the development of high-temperature ceramic-ceramic and ceramic-metal seals. The talk will also discuss the development of the multi-cell stack and its incorporation into a thermal-mechanical system required for its reliable operation as the heart of a COG device.