Safe, Low-Cost Anesthesia Using Recycled Xenon Gas

描述（来自申请人的摘要的逐字）：氙气是一种非常有用的气体。 有吸引力的麻醉剂，因为它对 心血管系统和快速诱导和出现。然而，氙被用于 因为与普通吸入麻醉剂相比，其成本高， 剂.即使它不是那么昂贵，氙气的有限供应也会 大大限制了它作为麻醉剂的用途。长期目标是 应用是使氙麻醉可广泛使用在低 成本具体目标是开发回收氙气的工艺和设备 通过收集麻醉过程中的废气，然后分离， 净化氙气以供再利用。第一阶段通过以下方式证明可行性：（1） 从典型麻醉剂废物中分离氙所需的关键工艺步骤 气体，（2）为所有需要实现的设备提供概念设计 氙的回收，和（3）通过分析表明，回收氙的成本 将与普通吸入麻醉剂竞争。 拟定商业应用： 低成本的氙麻醉气体将在两个广泛的应用中具有吸引力：（1）氙气 将成为数百万外科手术中的一大部分的麻醉剂选择 每年在美国对心血管疾病患者进行的研究; 氙麻醉因其并发症少，诱导和苏醒快， 可以减少病人在医院的时间，大大降低医疗费用。 拟议 研究将直接导致工艺和设备，将提供一个低成本的来源， 氙气用于这些广泛的应用。

DESCRIPTION (Verbatim from the Applicant's Abstract): Xenon gas is a very attractive anesthetic agent because of its minimal effects on the cardiovascular system and rapid induction and emergence. However, xenon is used only rarely because of its high cost compared to common inhaled anesthetic agents. Even if it were not so costly, the limited supply of xenon would greatly restrict its use as an anesthetic. The long-term objective of this application is to make xenon anesthesia available for widespread use at low cost. The specific aim is to develop processes and devices to recycle xenon gas by collecting waste gases from anesthesia procedures, then separating and purifying the xenon for re-use. Phase I proves feasibility by (1) demonstrating the key process steps required to separate xenon from typical anesthetic waste gas, (2) producing conceptual designs for all devices needed to accomplish xenon recovery, and (3) showing by analysis that the cost of recycled xenon will be competitive with common inhaled anesthetic agents. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: Low-cost xenon anesthetic gas will be attractive for two broad applications: (1) xenon gas will be the anesthetic agent of choice for a large fraction of the millions of surgical procedures that are performed each year in the United States on patients with cardiovascular conditions; and (2) because of fewer complications and rapid induction and emergence, xenon anesthesia can reduce patient time in the hospital, with large benefits to health care costs. The proposed research will lead directly to processes and devices that will provide a low-cost source of xenon for these widespread applications.