How can gases be pressurized to high (1000 to 3000 psi) pressures with commonly available equiment ? AskEngineers

Hi,

I'm building an oxygen concentrator, I should be able to produce 500 cubic feet of 96% pure oxygen per day. I would like to store this in a high pressure rated (3000 psi allowable) tank.

Of course pump such as they use in diving shops costs several thousand dollars used so they're not an option for me.

Compressor found in refrigerators can easily pressurize to 500 psi, however I want to pressurize oxygen and these compressor will contaminate the gases with oil.

Oxygen & oil = boom. (Perhaps there is oil that will not explode when exposed to oxygen though ?) If I clean them perfectly or all oil traces, they will probably destroy themselves in minutes so not an option.

Another option would be pressure washer pumps. They are rated at 3000 psi. However they are meant to pump liquids and I don't think they would work very long if they just pump gasses (for one thing, they seem to overspeed easily without the load of pushing water).

Maybe I could pump water into a high pressure reservoir filled with oxygen. Now I have 3000 psi oxygen but it's contaminated with moisture !

Maybe if I could have a membrane between gas & liquid, perhaps a modified hydraulic acumulator cylinder ? If I can get all the air out of the gas side ?!

Any ideas/advice welcomed

thanks !

Submitted June 03, 2016 at 06:15AM by shodanx http://ift.tt/1XUhrQQ AskEngineers