Patent ID: 7597858

Claim:
An apparatus for treating a waste anesthetic gas containing a volatile anesthetic and nitrous oxide discharged from an operating room, the apparatus comprising an adsorbing cylinder filled with an adsorbent for adsorbing a volatile anesthetic, a decompression unit for desorbing the adsorbed volatile anesthetic from the adsorbent and regenerating the adsorbent, a cooler for cooling or freezing the desorbed volatile anesthetic, a recovery unit for recovering the cooled or frozen volatile anesthetic, a decomposition reactor filled with a catalyst for decomposing the nitrous oxide contained in the waste anesthetic gas, a purge gas-introducing line connected so as to introduce a purge gas into an adsorbing cylinder, and a line for returning the gas containing the purge gas to the inlet of an adsorbing cylinder after the volatile anesthetic desorbed from the adsorbent is cooled and the liquefied or frozen volatile anesthetic is recovered.