New polymers as additives in dialysis treatment blended membranes for long term filtration
Małgorzata Tasior (TNW-AOT), Odyl ter Beek (TNW-AOT), Dimitrios Stamatialis (TNW-AOT)
Abstract
Dialysis is one of the most common treatments in end stage renal disease. During the treatment dialyzer consisting of hollow fiber membranes remove toxins from the blood. The fibers are made from blends of hydrophobic membrane forming polymers and hydrophilic additives. The latter are needed for achieving good blood compatibility. Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) is one of the most commonly used hydrophilic additive, however, it can be eluted from the membranes during sterilization and dialysis. That causes loss of fiber hydrophilicity and by that its blood compatibility and prevents fibers from being used for long term therapy, which would allow for increased toxin removal, and by that more efficient dialysis.
In this work, based on earlier studies of our team, we focus on incorporating alternative hydrophilic additives to hollow fiber membranes which have low leakage in long term treatment. The new membranes are prepared using liquid induced phase separation and thoroughly characterized including morphology, toxin removal for blood plasma and hemocompatibility.