Feasibility of repurposing hollow fibre membrane dialysers for oxygenating blood in resource constrained environments

Résumé

Previous research has demonstrated the viability of kidney dialysers repurposed as extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation devices to provide sufficient supplemental oxygen support for those suffering from COVID-19. This study focused on determining the mass transfer coefficient for carbon dioxide in kidney dialyser cartridges at varying pH levels. CO2 mass transfer coefficients of 5.5 and 6.95 𝑚𝑔/𝑘𝑝𝑎∙𝑚𝑖𝑛 were achieved, depending on the type of hollow fibre membrane dialyser — this corresponds to a CO2 removal rate of between of 80% and 90% of the total CO2 produced by the body. The mass transfer coefficients achieved with water as the medium suggest that sufficient CO2 removal for respiratory requirements can be achieved with hollow fibre membrane dialysers. This should motivate further experimentation with blood to determine the feasibility of using the cost-effective hollow fibre membrane dialysers to supplement conventional extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation technologies in resource-constrained hospital wards. It is also found that hollow fibre membrane dialysers have high sieving coefficients for dissolved ions, which indicates that dissolved solids and plasma ions will leak from the cartridge and supplements will need to be given to patients to account for these losses. The sieving coefficient for the kidney dialyser cartridge was calculated to be an average of 0.983. The results in this study are promising, adding additional parameters to the body of knowledge for devising operational protocols. However, more specific experimentation using blood is warranted.

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