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)
¹
. NO has attracted lots of attention from the discovery. And now, NO is increasingly being used in medical treatments for some illness related lung. Currently a system of NO inhalation has a gas cylinder of N
2
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 is produced by pulsed arc discharge in the mixture of N
2
and O
2
, and NO concentration increases with the increasing of pulse repetition rate and energy storage capacitance
^2–4
. In this paper, the detail about a prototype of NO generator by pulsed arc discharge based on the optimal discharge condition has been reported. As the results, it is observed that NO concentration in the outlet gas is about almost 1000ppm and rise time is about 20 to 30 sec. These conditions are enough for NO inhalation therapy. Additionally, NO concentration is adjustable by changing pulse repetition rate.