Ozone and oxygen
Oxygen concentrator
An oxygen concentrator draws in room air and passes it through molecular sieve beds that hold back nitrogen, delivering a continuous stream of concentrated oxygen. It stores nothing. In an ozone sauna it supplies the feed gas the ozone generator converts into ozone, and sets the flow rate.
Also called O2 concentrator, PSA concentrator
How it works
A concentrator is not a cylinder. It compresses ambient air through beds of zeolite molecular sieve that adsorb nitrogen and let oxygen through, cycling between two beds so the output is continuous. This is pressure swing adsorption. The units supplied with a Salvagente sauna use compressed packed molecular beds, run for 24 hours continuously, and have a five-channel filter and an oil-free compressor.
What is supplied
Every concentrator supplied with a sauna delivers 5 litres per minute at 93% ± 3% oxygen purity, unless a particular order specifies otherwise. For context, the United States Pharmacopeia carries a monograph for Oxygen 93 Percent — oxygen produced from air by the molecular sieve process, assayed at 90.0% to 96.0% by volume — and that figure sits inside the band.
No concentrator reaches cylinder purity: the sieve does not separate argon from oxygen, so a few per cent of argon always passes through with it. That is the physical ceiling of the technology rather than a shortcoming of any particular machine, and it is why purity is quoted as a band with a tolerance rather than as a single number.
Regulatory status
The oxygen concentrator supplied with the sauna is a medical device in its own right. The model we currently supply is FDA-cleared and CE marked. The FDA clearance applies to the concentrator, not to the sauna.
Its role in the sauna
It supplies the feed gas, and it sets the flow. The oxygen feed runs at a constant 2 litres per minute, which is the flow at which the 47 ppm figure is quoted, so the concentrator is part of what the session delivers rather than an accessory beside it. If too little oxygen passes over the generator the airflow alarm sounds, and the remedy is to increase the flow.
Why it matters here
Every Salvagente sauna ships with one. It decides whether the generator is making ozone from concentrated oxygen or from room air, and its flow setting is part of what a session delivers.