IPB Students Creates a Safe Compressor for Fishermen’s Health
As a maritime country, Indonesia had thousands to millions of marine products to offer. Those products were distributed from the surface to the bottom of the sea. The marine products that were located near the surface still could be gotten using a fishing gear, but those that were located in the deep waters, the catching must be done by "picking up" the products. Because the price of those products was so high, many fishermen would risk their lives to catch the marine products by diving.
Unfortunately, many fishermen still did not consider their health while diving. Fishermen preferred using a compressor as their breathing apparatus to using a refilled oxygen. According to the survey done in Seribu Islands, an economic factor became the main factor of a diversion in the use of underwater breathing apparatus procedure. The high price of refilled oxygen made fishermen chose to use air compression in order to breathe underwater.
Compressor required less cost and could be used to breathe underwater in a long period of time. However, according to medical views, the use of an air compressor as a breathing aid could affect the diver's health. The use of compressor could cause many diseases, such as shortness of breath, rapid breathing, dizziness, hallucinations, dropped blood pressure, fainting, respiratory depression, central nervous depression, and even death.
Those diseases happened because the work system of the compressor could not filter the incoming air well. Not only oxygen that could enter the compressor, but also nitrogen (N), and carbon dioxide (CO2), even the smoke from the compressor machine could enter the tube whose air would be inhaled by the diver.
Based on those problems, a group of students from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Bogor Agricultural University (IPB), through Student Creativity Program in Invention (PKM-KC) 2018, Sejahtera, Annisa Rizki Khairani, and Shintia, under the supervision of Dr. Akhiruddin Maddu, tried to create an innovation of Pure Oxygen Compressor Based on Oxygen Membrane Technology to Ensure The Health of Divers.
"Generally, compressor use a normal filter, causing all particles or gases to enter the compressor. This compressor usually filtered everything into the tube. Because of that, we applied oxygen membrane as the compressor's filter tool," said Sejahtera, the team leader.
Diving with the earning of hundreds thousands rupiah to millions rupiah is indeed very hard to resist, but it is very important to pay more attention to the health and safety equipment. This compressor invention of IPB students can be one of the alternatives to safety when diving.
