Oxygen transfer characteristics of a hollow fiber dialyser: toward possible repurposing of dialysers as blood oxygenators in the context of constrained availability of respiratory support

David M Rubin; Neil T Stacey; Tonderayi Matambo; Diane Hildebrandt

The oxygen capacity of blood is calculated assuming that blood at a fractional haemoglobin (Hb) saturation of 1 carries 8800 µM of O2 bound to the Hb (6) and we assume that the amount of dissolved O2 in blood is negligible. The HFMD cartridges are designed for blood flow-rates up to 500 ml/min, so the oxygen-carrying capacity of blood is evaluated based on a Hb concentration of 15 g/100ml and a typical oxyhaemoglobin dissociation curve. The percentage of a typical total respiratory demand of 0.357 g/min of oxygen that could be met using a blood flow-rate of 500 ml/min is also calculated. The results of this analysis are presented in Table 1 .