Bengaluru: As DRDO is working overtime to build a covid-care centre in Lucknow, it has come to light that the organisation will use a technology to produce its own oxygen. This technology, incidentally, is used in the Tejas aircraft. 

So this becomes the first time that a hospital is being incorporated with such a technology used in a fighter aircraft.

The technology is called ‘On board oxygen generation system' (OBOGS). 

"This technology can provide medical grade oxygen round-the-clock at a high flow rate catering to at least 50 ventilator ICU beds. This technology will be used to activate oxygen plants at Covid hospitals," an official was quoted by Swarajya as saying. 

More on OBOGS technology: 

It is an indigenously built technology (specifically for India-manufactured aircraft) used to supply oxygen to the aircrew by supplying oxygen using bleed air from the engine and separating oxygen from other components, using a process called Pressure Swing Adsorption Technology. 

With this technology the pilot can remain airborne for a long time. Till this time, the pilots had to get to the ground, maybe an hour or so after they were airborne to refill oxygen.  

DRDO building hospitals: 

Even as India continues to battle the second wave of covid pandemic, with several states reporting an astronomical surge in the number of cases, the nation’s premier defence organisation – DRDO – will build covid treatment hospitals. 

DRDO has revived one such hospital in Delhi, with a capacity of 500 beds and an ICU. 

Doctors from both military and paramilitary forces are in action. 

Not just in Delhi, even in Ahmedabad, the DRDO, in collaboration with Gujarat government, will come up with a 900-bed covid hospital. It will have 150 ICU beds with 150 ventilators and will open within 15 days at the Gujarat University Convention Centre on the GMDC ground.