Googling DIY oxygen concentration and production reactions. It appears there is no simple method. Electrolysis sounds simple but is apparently not. Industrial oxygen has purity problems. Concentration processes use zeolite which isn’t generally ubiquitous.
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Sheds whole new light on the idea of “spaceship earth”
Something as basic as breathable air is only available free and low-tech in a very narrow band around healthy. Drop below 90% or whatever and the full might of full-stack civilizational technology is necessary.
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Larger hospitals have oxygen generation capacity but most of the supply is done at centralized scale and requires cryogenic distribution. It’s not one of the resilient basic gases that can survive infrastructure failures. At least not at any meaningful scale.
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Zeolites seem like a high-value target for home-scale beyond-kitchen chemistry, something I’ve been thinking about lately. Unlike mechanical and electrical Maker movements, there are no 3D printers or Arduinos in chemistry. The DIY limit is still “baking soda and vinegar.”
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Beyond-kitchen chemistry seems to require more extreme pressures and temperatures and reactor vessels from uncommon materials like nickel (ht ). I hadn’t realized how big the gap between home and industrial chemistry was. It’s not “pressure cookers++”
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But maybe there are hacks? Stuff that goes beyond the baking soda limit without getting into unreasonably tough regimes?
What would be the most bang for the buck in diy chemistry, in terms of adding one extra chemical or device to the typical kitchen or bathroom?
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Kitchen and bathroom are obvious proto chemistry labs, just as the garage++ is the mechanical shop and the computer desk ++ is the electronics shop. Covid has me thinking this really needs to happen. DIY chemistry resilience to supply chain and infrastructure disruption.
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Oxygen is the most glaring materials vulnerability but also:
- vaccine raw materials
- other fine Pharma chemicals
- deep freeze distribution for RNA vaccines (a chemistry problem as much as an hvac one...)
- the special synthetic fiber used in n95s and hepa filters...
-zeolites
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There is a "downsizing" that could happen in chemical production (certainly biochemical) but you're looking at maybe 5 million dollars for a facility vs 100 million
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i remember imagining my dream home would have a lab that was big enough for a snooker-table-sized workbench and the ability to walk completely around it, and a wall of whiteboards to one side


