Effect of moisture on and kinetic features of the ultrafiltration rate of dialysis membrane.
The kinetic features of ultrafiltration of cellulose dialysis membrane stored under various humidity and temperature conditions were studied to obtain basic information of shelf-life characteristics of dialyzers. The ultrafiltration rate (UFR) decreased with time and the UFR-time curve suggested that the UFR would approach a certain equilibrium value. This phenomenon could be simulated well by the following equation: UFR = a.b.t/(1 + a.t) + c, where a, b, and c are constants and t is time. The effect of moisture adsorption onto the membrane on the UFR is discussed. A hypothesis is that in the amorphous region of cellulose, adsorbed water molecules would serve as molecular crosslinks through hydrogen bonding, and as this would reduce size of fine pores in the amorphous region, the UFR decreases.
Haemodialysers and Associated Devices
The principle of haemodialysis is simple. Blood and dialysis fluid are circulated on opposite sides of a semipermeable membrane which permits the passage of metabolites elevated as a consequence of renal failure but restricts the transfer of blood proteins and formed elements. The device containing the semi-permeable membrane is the haemodialyser. Removal of water occurs by control of the hydrostatic pressure gradient across the membrane and may be supplemented by increasing the dialysis fluid osmolality by the addition of glucose
Permeability studies with cellulosic membranes.
The true diffusive permeabilities of commercial, modified commercial, and laboratory cast regenerated cellulose membranes were measured with a batch dialyzer using 15 solutes (sodium chloride, nine radioactively labelled organic solutes, and five low molecular weight proteins) ranging in molecular weight from 58 to 68,000. Additional measurements included membrane thickness, water content, and strength properties, as well as equilibrium solute partition coefficients and solute diffusion coefficients in free solution. All commercial cellophanes were similar in sodium chloride permeability on a unit thickness basis and were significantly less permeable than hydrophilic wet gel membranes. This difference was attributed to the irreversible collapse of membrane structure upon drying. As the solute characteristic size increased, permeability decreased more sharply with commercial cellophane than with wet gel cellulose, the ratio between the two becoming an order of magnitude for large solutes. The ratio between the solute diffusion coefficient in the membrane and in free solution decreased exponentially with increasing solute size. The results suggest further work for higher permeability cellulosic hemodialysis membranes.