Location
Weber State University
Start Date
5-8-2017 11:48 AM
End Date
5-8-2017 12:00 AM
Description
General anesthesia enables surgery, with anesthesia machines being the predominant tool to do so. However, these machines are hard to maintain, costly, and require significant supporting infrastructure. The current design of anesthesia machines demands the disposal of anesthetic gases at a rate equal to fresh oxygen entering the system. This causes several orders of magnitude more anesthetic vaporized than needed, yielding negative economic and environmental impact. To address this, we propose utilizing the porous surface of activated charcoal to absorb and desorb the anesthetic gases to be reused.
Included in
Using Activated Charcoal to Reuse Anesthetic Gas
Weber State University
General anesthesia enables surgery, with anesthesia machines being the predominant tool to do so. However, these machines are hard to maintain, costly, and require significant supporting infrastructure. The current design of anesthesia machines demands the disposal of anesthetic gases at a rate equal to fresh oxygen entering the system. This causes several orders of magnitude more anesthetic vaporized than needed, yielding negative economic and environmental impact. To address this, we propose utilizing the porous surface of activated charcoal to absorb and desorb the anesthetic gases to be reused.