Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Oxygen generators safety

Since a major airplane crash took place, with over one hundred victims, people have been questioning the safety of the emergency oxygen generators aboard. These oxygen generators are placed in airplanes because in case there's a pressure drop the passengers must breathe through special masks connected to the oxygen generator.

After the crash happened, some blamed the oxygen generators as a possible cause of the explosion and of the fire, but experts sustain that oxygen generators and canisters that are aboard the airplanes are harmless if they are handled correctly, and that it is very unlikely that oxygen generators caused the explosion, but not impossible.

It is known that once a fire is started, it need oxygen to continue burning, so the only real harm that oxygen generators can do is to fuel an already started, burning fire.

Anyway, the Federal Aviation Administration keeps a close watch on any plane that is transporting oxygen generators together with passengers, and has proposed a fine of over one million dollars if doing so.
If anyone does not declare shipments of oxygen generators and canisters they they are in the danger of paying a substantial fine.

So, the biggest safety-related problems appear at the oxygen generator that are aboard airplanes, the ones that are used in laboratories are considered to be quite safe.

There have been some problems however with some certain models of oxygen generators, which use an absorbant material called zeolite to separate the oxygen from the nitrogen in the air, because zeolite components are considered to be nuissance dust. One of the producer's former employees has forwarded a complaint about the oxygen generators mentioned before, stating that the sieve beds that contain the zeolite were defective. Repairs and upgrades were made after this incident

Oxygen generator don't quite present any safety problems, only in some special cases, and the oxygen generators from labs or from hospitals or home are very safe and don't pose any threat.

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