Lincoln oxygen company helps Ford with COVID-19 aid project

As the pandemic progresses the White House called upon American manufacturers to help in the fight against COVID-19.

Now Ford Motor Company is looking to a Lincoln business for help to create their part of the project.

In April Roush, a part of Ford Motor Company, reached out to High Volume Oxygen here in Lincoln to help equip a prototype of a trailer that moving forward could help thousands across the country.

For the past 25 years Marc Kornbluh has been blowing glass. Something that requires lots of oxygen.

"Modular expandable oxygen system," said Kornbluh. "It's used primarily in glass blowing but we have a lot of customers in veterinary and we have a lot of customers in aquaculture which is fish farming."

High Volume Oxygen's system was created and patented by Kornbluh and his partners 10 years ago. In its newest role it was taken to Michigan to help be a part of a project ordered by the White House.

"Their mandate from Ford was to build an oxygen trailer that can be taken to sites," said Kornbluh.

The goal of the trailers is to aid in areas where people may not be able to get to hospitals for ventilators.

"These trailers are built to do 200 liters per minute," said Kornbluh. "We calculated that could do anywhere from 30 to 45 ventilators."

Kornbluh says he feels honored he can help during the pandemic and that if approved to move forward that the trailers can help in instances other than COVID-19.

"A few of these were located in Puerto Rico for example during the hurricane, this was before COVID19," said Kornbluh. "I read stories where people were dying from the lack of oxygens in hospitals so it's just a very important piece of equipment for the country to have."

High Volume Oxygen says the trailer passed its proof of concept test by industry and healthcare experts. It says they now must wait to see what FEMA and Ford plan to do with the project moving forward.