Here are two things our team at Thinvent is doing to help in the current crisis, and ideas on how you can help us:
1. We are importing oxygen concentrators from China and Thailand, in commercial quantities. We will be selling these items, not donating them. But we will sell them at a much much lower price than what black marketers are demanding today. We will basically charge a reasonable markup over the CIF cost of the item, and use that to cover support, delivery, repairing and warranty in India. We are importing properly tested products, that are capable of running 24x7 and generating 10L/min flow rates. We will be further testing each machine aggressively here in India before we sell them.
Due to various factors such as the state of the economy and the supply chain issues caused by a semiconductor shortage, we do not have much cash balance. This is typical for our company for April and May, and does not usually impact us; we plan ahead for it. However, we now have very little money to invest in the import of these concentrators. And we do not want to take an advance from potential buyers. (We have, in fact, given a 50% advance on a concentrator to an Indian vendor, who says his goods are now stuck in China. I think taking advance from buyers and then using that money to import goods is unethical, especially when what we buy here for ₹80K+GST will be sold to the vendor in China for between $150 and $200.)
So, we are looking to raise loans from you folks, to finance the purchase of this equipment. We will be paying an above market rate of interest on the funds we borrow, and giving lendors a signed loan agreement and a post dated cheque for the entire amount (with interest) upfront. The company will protect you from risks such as goods getting stuck during shipment, or, god willing, Covid suddenly vanishing and the market for oxygen concentrators in India collapsing.
2. We are recreating here in our office in India, open source designs for oximeters and oxygen concentrators. Oximeters are easy (Maxim and others just sell the sensor as a part), and https://oxikit.com is a prototype oxygen concentrator that Alastair Young kindly pointed me to. Once the prototype runs and works, we will be quickly productising and selling the item in commercial quantities. At this point we don't know what help we will need. The prototyping is cheap, so we do not need money for it. If you are not in India, we will call upon you to ship us some parts that might already be in shortage here (because, hopefully, we aren't the only ones trying to scrounge together oxygen concentrators).
We have been studying the chemical principle that underlies a concentrator, and it is fairly straightforward. A mineral called Zeolite, found at undersea volcanic eruption sites, adsorbs Nitrogen at high pressure. You take regular air from outside and pressurise it in a canister with Zeolite. Nitrogen gets adsorbed, and the balance air has 90%+ Oxygen, which is supplied to the patient(s). Then the canister is depressurised, and the Nitrogen desorbs and is let out as flue gas. Cycle repeats, patient lives. More on pressure swing adsorption here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_concentrator
It is important to manufacture concentrators in India because the total production capacity of all the manufacturers in China and Thailand combined cannot get us out of the hole we are in. Once we have an open source design that is suited to components available domestically in India, many other factories can join in. All this assumes that the high demand for oxygen concentrators will continue till the end of May. My team members were heartbroken to note that the maths checks out and there is no way this curve is plateauing before June.
[Please do not share this information with anybody looking to purchase an oxygen concentrator. We will not be accepting any orders till the goods are safely in our office, and at that time, we will make an announcement here. Basically, do not give distraught people false hope.]
1. We are importing oxygen concentrators from China and Thailand, in commercial quantities. We will be selling these items, not donating them. But we will sell them at a much much lower price than what black marketers are demanding today. We will basically charge a reasonable markup over the CIF cost of the item, and use that to cover support, delivery, repairing and warranty in India. We are importing properly tested products, that are capable of running 24x7 and generating 10L/min flow rates. We will be further testing each machine aggressively here in India before we sell them.
Due to various factors such as the state of the economy and the supply chain issues caused by a semiconductor shortage, we do not have much cash balance. This is typical for our company for April and May, and does not usually impact us; we plan ahead for it. However, we now have very little money to invest in the import of these concentrators. And we do not want to take an advance from potential buyers. (We have, in fact, given a 50% advance on a concentrator to an Indian vendor, who says his goods are now stuck in China. I think taking advance from buyers and then using that money to import goods is unethical, especially when what we buy here for ₹80K+GST will be sold to the vendor in China for between $150 and $200.)
So, we are looking to raise loans from you folks, to finance the purchase of this equipment. We will be paying an above market rate of interest on the funds we borrow, and giving lendors a signed loan agreement and a post dated cheque for the entire amount (with interest) upfront. The company will protect you from risks such as goods getting stuck during shipment, or, god willing, Covid suddenly vanishing and the market for oxygen concentrators in India collapsing.
2. We are recreating here in our office in India, open source designs for oximeters and oxygen concentrators. Oximeters are easy (Maxim and others just sell the sensor as a part), and https://oxikit.com is a prototype oxygen concentrator that Alastair Young kindly pointed me to. Once the prototype runs and works, we will be quickly productising and selling the item in commercial quantities. At this point we don't know what help we will need. The prototyping is cheap, so we do not need money for it. If you are not in India, we will call upon you to ship us some parts that might already be in shortage here (because, hopefully, we aren't the only ones trying to scrounge together oxygen concentrators).
We have been studying the chemical principle that underlies a concentrator, and it is fairly straightforward. A mineral called Zeolite, found at undersea volcanic eruption sites, adsorbs Nitrogen at high pressure. You take regular air from outside and pressurise it in a canister with Zeolite. Nitrogen gets adsorbed, and the balance air has 90%+ Oxygen, which is supplied to the patient(s). Then the canister is depressurised, and the Nitrogen desorbs and is let out as flue gas. Cycle repeats, patient lives. More on pressure swing adsorption here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_concentrator
It is important to manufacture concentrators in India because the total production capacity of all the manufacturers in China and Thailand combined cannot get us out of the hole we are in. Once we have an open source design that is suited to components available domestically in India, many other factories can join in. All this assumes that the high demand for oxygen concentrators will continue till the end of May. My team members were heartbroken to note that the maths checks out and there is no way this curve is plateauing before June.
[Please do not share this information with anybody looking to purchase an oxygen concentrator. We will not be accepting any orders till the goods are safely in our office, and at that time, we will make an announcement here. Basically, do not give distraught people false hope.]