A Compact Nitric Oxide Supply for Medical Application

In 1987, nitric oxide (NO) was identified as an effective treatment involving endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF) .NO has attracted lots of attention from the discovery. And now, NO has increasingly being used in medical treatments for some illness related lung. Currently a system of NO inhalation has a gas cylinder of N₂ mixed with a high concentration of NO. However, this method is potentially risky due to the possibility of accidental leak of NO from the cylinder. In addition, gas cylinder is too heavy to carry around and too expensive to be used for all patients. Therefore, an on-site generation of NO would be highly desirable for patient, who is suffering lung disease, and medical doctors. Previous researches reported that NO was produced by pulsed arc discharges in the mixture of N₂ and O₂, and NO concentration increased with increase of pulse repetition rate and energy storage capacitance. In this paper, the details about a prototype of NO generator by pulsed arc discharges which are based on the optimal discharge condition have been reported. As the results, it is observed that NO concentration in the outlet gas is enough high to NO inhalation.