Biomed Microdevices (2012) 14:595602

DOI 10.1007/s10544-012-9638-7

Urea separation in flat-plate microchannel hemodialyzer;

experiment and modeling
Alana R. Tuhy & Eric K. Anderson & Goran N. Jovanovic

Published online: 29 February 2012

# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Abstract Two flat-plate microchannel hemodialyzers were

constructed consisting of two identical laminae separated by
a 20[m] thick ultrafiltration membrane (Gambro AN69).
Each lamina contains a parallel array of microchannels 100
[m] deep, 200[m] wide, and 5.6[cm] or 9.9[cm] in length
respectively. Urea was removed from the aqueous stream
containing 1.0[g] urea per liter de-ionized water in the blood
side, by countercurrent contact with pure de-ionized water
in the dialysate side of the flat-plate hemodialyzer. In all
cases volumetric flow rate of water in the dialysate side was
equal or less than the volumetric flow rate in the blood side,
which is in large contrast to commercial applications of
hollow-fiber hemodialyzers where dialysate flow is severalfold larger than blood flow rate. A three-dimensional finite
volume mass transport model, built entirely from the first
principles with no adjustable parameters, was written in
FORTRAN. The results of the mathematical model excellently predict experimental results. The fractional removals
of urea predicted by the model are within 2.7%11% of
experimentally obtained values for different blood and dialysate velocities/flow rates in microchannels, and for different transmembrane pressures. The overall mass transfer
coefficient was calculated using the urea outlet concentrations obtained at various average velocities (1.05.0[cm/s])
in the blood and dialysate, and two nominal transmembrane
pressures (Ptm 00 and 10,000.[Pa]). Overall mass transfer
coefficients obtained experimentally ranged from 0.068 to
0.14 [cm/min]. The numerical model predicted an average
overall mass transfer coefficient of 0.08 [cm/min]. This
value is 60% higher than those found in commercial dialyzers (~0.05[cm/min]).
A. R. Tuhy : E. K. Anderson : G. N. Jovanovic (*)
Department of Chemical Engineering, Oregon State University,
103 Gleeson Hall,
Corvallis, OR 97331, USA
e-mail: goran.jovanovic@oregonstate.edu

Keywords Mass transfer . Microchannels . Flat-membrane

hemodialyzer . Urea . Hemodialysis . Dialysis

1 Introduction
The hollow fiber based hemodialyzer made an extremely
important impact in hemodialysis practice in the last three
decades. Patients with renal diseases were able to improve
their life expectancy and maintain a somewhat improved
quality of life. In 2006 more than 1.6 million patients
worldwide (Kalorama Information 2007) were receiving
dialysis treatment for end stage renal disease and the number
of patients requiring treatment is growing at a rate of 7% per
year worldwide (Grassmann et al. 2005). At the present rate
the number of patients requiring dialysis will exceed 2
million by 2011. With the current growth rate and expected
improvement of health care in developing nations, current
dialysis treatment models and practices need new
approaches and above all new technical solutions to provide
higher quality patient care. It appears that hollow fiber
technology has met technical limitations in further development of dialysis practices and is limited to advancements in
membrane quality and production technology. The main
limitation in the conventional hollow fiber approach is the
non-uniformity of the dialysate flow path. The packing of
fibers within the dialyzer is not uniform, which leads to nonuniform dialysate flow. It has been shown that the most
significant hindrance on mass transfer is the stagnant
regions that can develop in the flow paths (Colton and
Lowrie 1981) and the path length for diffusion. In order to
compensate for this current designs typically increase the
dialysate flowrate, which is not practical for home dialysis.
The current practice of short, intensive hemodialysis sessions lead to significant fluctuations in blood chemistry and
elicit immune system responses from blood membrane contact (Goerke et al. 2002). The morbidity of patients has been

596

shown to be directly correlated with dialysis intensity

(Brunelli et al. 2010). Microchannel hemodialyzers with flat
membranes hold many promises that are pertinent to the
needs of renal patients and healthcare providers.
This research effort was focused on the development of a
multi-microchannel flat-plate hemodialyzer utilizing an ultrafiltration membrane (Gambro AN69). This microfluidicbased hemodialyzer has markedly improved all mass transfer characteristics, i.e. mass transfer coefficient, mass flux,
fractional removal and clearance. This results in higher
overall mass transfer efficiency. Enhanced mass transfer
characteristics were obtained as a result of uniform diffusion
path lengths on both sides of the hemodialyzer membrane:
blood side and dialysate side. The consistency of diffusion
path-lengths throughout the dialyzer was achieved by uniform design, and accurate microfabrication of microchannels (100200 [m] in cross section) in 1 [mm] polysulfone
laminae. The enhanced mass transfer efficiency creates opportunities for alternate design approaches, which could
easily result in: smaller dialyzer units, less membrane used,
less expensive devices, reduced dialysate to blood flow
ratio, or improvements in other functional characteristics
such as lower blood flow rates and pressure drops that are
completely unattainable in commercially available hollow
fiber hemodialyzers. An important characteristic of the flatplate microchannel-based hemodialyzer is extremely low
blood damage, measured by the change of hematocrit, and
plasma free hemoglobin. Experimental data related to blood
damage is reported elsewhere (Warner-Tuhy 2009).

2 Methods
2.1 Experimental setup
The dialyzers under consideration were of a parallel channel
configuration in a flat-plate design. Two flat plates are
assembled with channels aligned and separated with a 20
[m] Gambro AN69 ultrafiltration membrane. All data presented in this study is for the device operated in countercurrent flow. For these experiments a fluid with zero
concentration of the solute is pumped on one side of the
device, while on the other side a solution of known concentration is pumped through the opposing set of microchannels. The output for each side of the lamina was collected,
weighted, and the solute concentration measured. A detailed
description of the experimental methods and setup has been
previously reported (Warner-Tuhy 2009).
Two dialyzers were tested. One design consisted of 26
parallel channels which are 5.6 [cm] in length, with a cross
section of 100 [m] x 200 [m] (h x w) and was manufactured
by direct micro-machining of a polysulfone substrate using a
high RPM CNC. Figure 1 is a rendering of a single laminae

Biomed Microdevices (2012) 14:595602

Fig. 1 26 rendered microchannel lamina

and Fig. 2 is a photograph of the 26 channel assembled lamina

without a membrane. The second laminae design (not shown)
consisted of 128 channels that are 9.9 [cm] long with a cross
section of 100 [m] x 200 [m] (h x w) and was manufactured
by thermo-embossing a polycarbonate substrate with a micromachined stainless steel negative.
Various micromachining techniques could be used in the
manufacturing of microchannels and other microscale features on a polymer (polysulfone) plate/substrate. In this
study the smaller 26-channel/5.6 [cm] long device was
manufactured by directly machining the structures on a
polysulfone substrate. Direct micromachining produces accurate features, and in this case results in a device with
consistent microchannel cross-section. Uniformly produced
microchannels and other accurate microscale features provide a device that can be used as an excellent benchmark for
the presented experimental, modeling and numerical work.
Direct micromachining is a method of choice that provides
convenient and fast manufacturing of research scale devices.
The 128-channel/9.9 [cm] long, device was manufactured
using thermal embossing method. This method produces a
somewhat less reliable spatial uniformity of microstructures,
but is much better suited for high volume manufacturing. In
particular, embossing process variations tend to cause the
microchannels to be somewhat shallower closer to the center
of the device. These variations result in a device with a
shorter than expected characteristic diffusion path length in
some microchannels, and non-uniformity in fluid residence
time distribution. After devices were successfully produced
using a direct machining approach, it was important to
demonstrate the feasibility of producing devices with a high
volume manufacturing approach. Further optimization of
the micro-embossing process is required before it will be

Fig. 2 26 microchannel lamina

Biomed Microdevices (2012) 14:595602

able to produce a device with increased accuracy in microchannel dimensions.

Fluid was delivered to the dialyzer at a constant volumetric
flow rate by syringe pumps. For the two dialyzers used in this
study the characteristic diffusion path length was 100 [m]
with a total mass transfer area of 2.91 [cm2] and 25.34 [cm2]
respectively. In mass transfer experiments fluid mean residence
time in the microchannel was varied between 1 [s] and 6 [s] in
the device with a channel length of 5.6 [cm], and from 2 [s] to
10 [s] in the device with a 9.9 [cm] channel length. Data
obtained from numerical simulation represent the residence
time in a greater range to demonstrate the performance characteristics at residence time extrema that are not experimentally
feasible. For the 5.6 [cm] device in the numerical simulation
residence time was varied from 1.02 [s] to 11.2 [s], while for the
9.9 [cm] device the numerical residence time was varied between 1.8[s] and 19.8[s].
For mass transfer measurements de-ionized water was
used as the carrier fluid with urea (Sigma-Aldrich
#U5128) as the analyte. The initial concentration of urea
was 1 [g/L]. The urea was analyzed using a Quantichrome
colorimetric assay (DIUR-550) from Bioassay Systems
(Hayword, CA). This test kit has a linear calibration up to
a urea concentration of 1 [g/L]. Figure 3 is a schematic of
the experimental test loop. Pressure was monitored at inlets
and outlets using blood pressure transducers from Utah
Medical Products Inc. (Midvale, UT). Three samples were
collected at each outlet, and for each flow rate, in 15 [cm3]
centrifuge tubes. The samples were then weighed to check
the mass balance. For the experimental runs requiring ultrafiltration pressure, a needle valve was connected to the
blood outlet to increase backpressure, and to regulate the
pressure drop across the membrane.

Fig. 3 Test loop

597

2.2 Analysis
Mass transfer results were evaluated at five different blood
flow rates corresponding to average fluid velocities between 1.0 [cm/s] and 5.0 [cm/s] with equal dialysate flow
rates and two nominal ultrafiltration pressures across the
membrane (Ptm 00.0 [Pa] and 10 000. [Pa]). One experiment was conducted with the dialysate flow rate being 75%
that of the blood flow rate and no nominal transmembrane
pressure.
2.3 Mathematical model for urea transport
To accurately analyze, and predict the mass transfer performance of the microchannel dialyzer a three-dimensional
numerical simulation algorithm was developed. Numerical
simulations are based on the mathematical model (Eqs. 1a,
1b, and 2), which is entirely built on the conservation
equations for mass and momentum transport with no adjustable parameters. Since each microchannel pair operates
identically to other parallel channels, only one channel pair
needs to be simulated to predict the performance of the
entire device.
The computational domain is comprised of three subdomains illustrated in Fig. 4. The two fluid domains are
separated by a porous membrane. The numerical solution of
the differential equations is third order accurate and were
solved using GMRES and preconditioned conjugate
gradients.
The steady state NavierStokes equations for isothermal and
incompressible fluid (Eq. 1a) were solved using the SIMPLE
method to generate the three-dimensional flow field within a
pair of microchannels. The boundary conditions for the Navier

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Biomed Microdevices (2012) 14:595602

Fig. 4 Computational domain

for model

Stokes equations are provided in Table 1, where ub,o and ud,o are
average inlet blood and dialysate velocities respectively.


@u
u  ru rp r2 u

@t

ru0

1a

1b

Water was the carrier fluid used in the experiments and

the flow was assumed to be Newtonian and incompressible.
The viscosity and density of water at 30C was used in the
simulations as this closely matched the ambient temperature
during the experiments. Dilute solution assumptions were
invoked since the concentration of the solute (urea) was
small and was assumed to have no impact on the flow field.
The general steady state convection diffusion equation for a
dilute solution (Eq. 2) was solved to evaluate the mass
transfer in the microchannel pair. The boundary conditions
and diffusivities are provided in Table 2, where Dab is the
diffusivity of urea in water and Deff is the effective diffusivity of urea in water in the membrane. The effective
Table 1 Boundary conditions for navierstokes equations
ujx0;htm <y<H;0<z<W ub;o
Inlet
ujxL;0<y<h;0<z<W ud;o

Outlet

pb;out
0
pjxL;htm <y<H;0<z<W pd;out

@u
@x xL;htm <y<H;0<z<W 0
pjx0;0<y<h;0<z<W

@u
@x x0;0<y<h;0<z<W

Wall

ujy0;yH;z0;zW 0

Membrane

ujyh um
ujyhtm um

diffusivity (Deff) used for diffusion in the membrane was

evaluated from the literature values given below.

2




@C
@C
@C
@ C @2C @2C
u
2 2
v
w
D
@x
@y
@z
@x2
@y
@z

Convective transport through the membrane is important

for solute clearance and is also necessary for water removal
from the bloodstream. Darcys law was used to model the
porous flow through the ultrafiltration membrane domain.
Literature values were used for membrane characteristics
(Collins and Ramirez 1979), and were scaled for membrane
thickness using Ficks Law. In the membrane the effective
diffusivity for urea in water (Deff) is 5.5*106 [cm2/sec] and
the hydraulic permeability is 42 [ml/h m2 mmHg].
Numerical simulations corresponding to experimental
conditions for each hemodialyzer device were run in order
to accurately compare the simulation results with the experimental results. The simulation results were in excellent
agreement with experimental data and are discussed in
Section 3, below.

Table 2 Boundary conditions for convention diffusion equation

Diffusion coefficient
Inlet
Outlet
Wall

Dj0<x<L;0<y<h;0<z<W Dab
Dj0<x<L;htm <y<H;0<z<W Dab
Dj0<x<L;h<y<htm ;0<z<W Deff
Cjx0;htm <y<H;0<z<W Cb;o
CjxL;0<y<h;0<z<W Cd;o

@C 
@x x0;0<y<h;0<z<W 0
@C 
@x xL;htm <y<H;0<z<W 0

@C 
@y y0;yH 0

@C 
@z z0;zW 0

Biomed Microdevices (2012) 14:595602

599
1.0

The overall mass transfer coefficient (Eq. 3a) and fractional

removal (Eq. 4) of urea were also calculated using the urea
outlet concentrations. The overall mass transfer coefficient
was chosen as a performance metric to allow readers easy
assessment of these findings with other published works and
commercial dialyzer data.
N

Ko 0

Concentration (g/L)

2.4 Mass transfer coefficient, K

0.4
0.2
0.0
0.1

Cinlet
Coutlet

mtrans
A  t

QD;O CD;O
QB;I CB;I

0.8

1.5

2.1

2.8

3.5

4.1

4.8

5.5

X Position in Top Channel (cm)

3b

In Eq. 3a and 3b, N is the average mass flux and mtrans is

the urea transferred to the dialysate in [mg], t is the mean
residence time of the fluid in a microchannel [min], A is the
surface area available for transfer in [cm2], C is the concentration of urea in [mg/cm3], and Ko is the overall mass
transfer coefficient with units of [cm/min]. The fractional
removal of urea in the flat-plate hemodialyzer device was
calculated using Eq. 4 where Fr is the fractional removal,
QD,O is the fluid flow rate out of the dialysate side, CD,O is
the concentration of urea in the dialysate outlet, QB,I is the
fluid flow rate in on the blood side, CB,I is the initial
concentration of urea in blood inlet 1.0 [mg/cm3].
Fr

0.6

3a

@ Cinlet
 Coutlet
 A
ln

0.8

Fig. 5 Simulated urea concentration along the length of the channel.

Fluid velocities from bottom line to top line: 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0,
and 5.5 (cm/s)

of 5.6 [cm] at various average fluid velocities (at equal

blood and dialysate flow) and no imposed pressure offset.
Fractional removal of urea at the five fluid velocities
were calculated from experimental data and compared
against the simulation results. The experimental and model
comparison with and without an imposed pressure offset,
between blood and dialysate side of the hemodialyzer, is
shown in Fig. 6. The model results are within 2.7% of
experimental results indicating fractional removals of urea
ranging from 0.14[/] to 0.47[/]. The experimental data set
shown in Fig. 6 is for the dialyzer shown in Figs. 1 and 2
(laminae with 26 parallel microchannels, 5.6 [cm] in length)
Figure 7 shows the fractional removal comparison for
urea with two blood-to-dialysate flow rate ratios (1:1 and
1:0.75 [blood : dialysate]). The results show the experimental data is within 11% of the simulation predicted fractional
removals for urea. The experimental data set shown in Fig. 7
0.7

The major objective of this work was to demonstrate that a

flat-plate microchannel-based dialyzer could provide improved mass transfer characteristics (such as fractional removal of urea, and overall mass transfer coefficient) in
comparison to the same mass transfer characteristics published for commercially available hollow fiber dialyzers. All
experimental mass transfer data is obtained in the test loop
schematic shown in Fig. 3.
A parametric study was conducted using the numerical
simulation to determine solute concentration along the
length of the channel. The final outlet concentration was
integrated across the microchannel to determine the fractional removal and overall mass transfer coefficient.
Figure 5 illustrates the concentration in the top (blood)
channel with respect to the longitudinal (x) position in the
channel. The concentration profiles are for a channel length

0.6
Fractional Removal

3 Results

0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0

Fluid Velocity in Top (Blood) Channels (cm/s)

Fig. 6 Urea fractional removal at varying fluid velocities for 5.6 [cm]
channel.
Simulation result for Ptm 00.0 [Pa],
Simulation
result for Ptm 010 000 [Pa], () represents experimental data for
Ptm 00 [Pa], and () represents experimental data for Ptm 010 000
[Pa]

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Biomed Microdevices (2012) 14:595602

Fractional Removal

0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
0

Fluid Velocity in Top (Blood) Channel (cm/s)

Fig. 7 Urea fractional removal at varying channel velocities for 9.9
[cm] channel.
Simulation result for equivalent fluid velocities,
Simulation result for (1:0.75) velocity ratio, () experimental
data for equivalent fluid velocities and () experimental data for
(1:0.75) velocity ratio

is for a dialyzer laminae with 128 parallel microchannels,

9.9 [cm] in length.
In Fig. 7 there is an increasing difference between the
simulation results and experimentally obtained data for the
fractional removal that is not observed with the smaller 5.6
[cm] device. This is a clear demonstration of the effect of
under-imprinting that was occasionally observed in
embossed devices. Great care was exercised to use only
embossed, 9.9 [cm], devices with minimal variations in
characteristic dimensions. Due to the nature of the thermal
embossing process, variations in microchannel depth were
found to be one-sided; i.e. under-imprinting causes the
physical device to be shallower than the design depth microchannels. Since the computational model assumes designed
microchannel dimensions, it could be expected that simulation results under-predict the fractional removal achieved by
the device. This effect is not observed in the 5.6 [cm]
channel device because direct micromachining does not
cause this systematic process variation.
Fractional removal is rarely reported in open literature,
thus it is difficult to find this mass transfer characteristic for
commercially available hollow fiber hemodialyzers.
Fractional removal is also an extensive mass transfer characteristic, which depends on the length of microchannels/
hollow fibers, and cannot be readily used for direct comparison of mass transfer performances of dissimilar (in construction architecture) hemodialyzer devices. Contrary to
fractional removal, overall mass transfer coefficient, Ko, is
more often reported in open literature, and it is largely
insensitive to the length of microchannels/follow fibers
and initial solute concentrations. Thus, it can be used to
compare mass transfer efficiencies of dissimilar (in size,
type, and architecture) hemodialyzer devices.

Below, are the experimentally obtained overall mass

transfer coefficients, Ko, at characteristic operating velocities in microchannels. The experimental results compare
very favorably with the overall mass transfer coefficients
reported in open literature for commercially available
hemodialyzers.
Figure 8 shows overall mass transfer coefficients
obtained at different blood and dialysate flow rates (velocities in the microchannels) through a dialyzer lamina, which
was assembled from two microchannel plates, separated by
an ultrafiltration membrane. The average fluid velocities in a
microchannel are also shown in Fig. 8, in addition to the
range of blood flow velocities typically encountered in
commercial hollow fiber dialyzers. Overall mass transfer
coefficients were calculated from experimental data
obtained in the test loop, schematically illustrated in
Fig. 3. Numerical values for the obtained experiential data
presented along with additional experimental results for the
removal of urea in a microchannel hemodialyzer can be
found elsewhere (Warner-Tuhy 2009). The overall mass
transfer coefficients for two blood-to-dialysate flow rate
ratios (1:1 and 1:0.75 [blood : dialysate]) are shown in
Fig. 8 for a lamina with 128 microchannels and a length of
9.9 [cm]. Each data point represented in Fig. 8 is the average
of six independent measurements. The solid line is the
overall mass transfer coefficient predicted from the simulation. The corresponding pressure drops for each side of the
lamina are given in Fig. 9. Overall mass transfer coefficients
were in the range of 0.07 [cm/min] to 0.14 [cm/min], the
average simulation result was 0.08 [cm/min].
Increasing the nominal pressure on the blood side of the
lamina increases convective transport through the membrane. Figure 10 shows the overall mass transfer coefficients
obtained at two nominal ultrafiltration pressure differences
across membrane: Ptm 00.0 [Pa] and 10 000 [Pa], at 1:1
0.20
0.16

Ko (cm/min)

0.7

0.12
0.08
0.04
0.00

Fluid Velocity in Top (Blood )Channels (cm/s)

Fig. 8 Mass transfer coefficient at varying blood flowrates for 9.9
[cm] channel. () 1:1 blood-to-dialysate flow ratio and () 1:0.75
blood-to-dialysate flow ratio. () Simulation results ( ) Commercial
hollow fiber

601

25000

12000

20000

10000

Pressure Drop (Pa)

Pressure (Pa)

Biomed Microdevices (2012) 14:595602

15000
10000
5000
0

8000
6000
4000
2000

Fluid Velocity in Top (Blood) Channels (cm/s)

1
2
3
4
5
6
Fluid Velocity in Top (Blood) Channels (cm/s)

Fig. 9 Pressure drop (p) for each side (inletoutlet) for 9.9 [cm]
channel. () 1:1 blood-to-dialysate flow ratio, () 1:0.75 blood-todialysate flow ratio. (white) dialysate side (black) blood side

Fig. 11 Pressure drop for each side (inletoutlet) for 5.6 [cm] channel.
() Ptm 00 [Pa], () Ptm 010 000 [Pa], (black) blood side and (white)
dialysate side

blood-to-dialysate velocity ratio using a lamina containing

26 microchannels with a length of 5.6 [cm]. The
corresponding pressure drops for each side of the lamina are
given in Fig. 11. The experimental overall mass transfer coefficients were between of 0.075 [cm/min] and 0.091 [cm/min],
and the simulation results were between 0.079 [cm/min] and
0.088 [cm/min].
Simulation results for the overall mass transfer coefficient indicate a slight velocity dependence and are in agreement with the experimental results for the smaller 5.6 [cm]
device. The mass transfer coefficient in the 9.9[cm] device
has larger velocity dependence than is predicted by the
model. The authors hypothesize that this is largely due to
two factors. The first is that the manufacturing method is
different between the two devices. The 5.6 [cm] device was
directly machined while the 9.9 [cm] device was thermally
embossed, which may lead to larger manufacturing variances in the embossed device. The second cause is pressure
dependent flow misdistribution in the large device. It is

challenging to design an optimal header space that will

uniformly feed larger number of microchannels, especially
in the presence of occasional gas bubbles found in both
blood and dialysate side of the device. A simple plenum
that was used in laminae with 128 channels may not have
been sufficient to guarantee uniform distribution of fluid in
each microchannel.
Issues related to variances in microchannel dimensions
emerging from thermal embossing are challenges that commercial manufacturers of microscale structures have already
successfully resolved. The appearance of gas bubbles is
ubiquitous for all microchannel structures, in which bubbles
cause unexpected and seemingly random variations in pressure and flow distributions. This particular phenomenon and
search for a viable solution is currently explored by the
authors research group under NIH-RO1 grant.
The overall mass transfer coefficients obtained from all
experiments were in the range of 0.068 [cm/min] to 0.14
[cm/min]. The range for commercial hollow fiber dialyzers:
CT110GST, Nephral ST 200, and Nephral ST 500 is from
0.049 to 0.051 [cm/min] (Morti and Zydney 1998; WarnerTuhy 2009). The model predicts an overall mass transfer
coefficient of 0.08 [cm/min] in the blood velocity operating
range for commercial hollow fiber dialyzers.
A statistical analysis was performed on the experimental
data sets to determine if there is a significant statistical
difference in overall mass transfer coefficients for the case
of reduced dialysate flow, and the case of increased pressure
offset between blood and dialysate side. Based on a paired ttest the difference in mass transfer coefficients caused by
reducing the dialysate flow rate by 25% was not significant
(shown in Figs. 7 and 8). There is also no statistical difference in the urea transport when a 10 000 [Pa] pressure offset
is imposed (Figs. 6 and 10). These results support the
conclusion that flat-plate microchannel-based hemodialyzers may use substantially smaller quantities of dialysate,

0.12

Ko (cm/min)

0.10
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0.00
0

Fluid Velocity in Top (Blood) Channels (cm/s)

Fig. 10 Overall mass transfer coefficient for 5.6 [cm] channel. ()
P00 [Pa], and () P010,000 [Pa]. () Simulation results ( )
commercial hollow fiber dialyzer

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Biomed Microdevices (2012) 14:595602

cost of treatment and is the next step in the development of a

wearable dialyzer.

compared to hollow fiber dialyzers, without a penalty in the

overall mass transfer efficiency. It was somewhat surprising
that the imposed pressure offset of P010,000 [Pa] did not
yield significant gains in urea removal. The convective flow
through a thin ultrafiltration membrane is still small enough
not to contribute substantially to mass transfer of urea,
which is dominated by diffusional transport phenomena.
However, in a clinical setting it is still necessary to impose a
pressure difference to facilitate overall net transport for removal of fluids from the blood stream.

Acknowledgements Source of Support: This work was supported in

part by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering
(grant no. R01EB011567). The content is solely the responsibility of the
authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the
National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, or the
National Institutes of Health. We, also, gratefully acknowledge the funding obtained from: ONAMI (Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies
Institute), John C. Erkkila Endowment, Murdock Charitable Trust
Oregon, and Oregon State University College of Engineering.

4 Discussion

References

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devices ability to transfer a given solute from the bloodstream. By isolating the boundary layers in microfluidic
devices the mass transfer coefficient can be greatly
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The results found indicate that flat-plate microchannel
hemodialyzers have the potential for overcoming some of
the current limitations in commercial hollow fiber dialyzer
technology. The large increase in mass transfer efficiency
makes it possible to produce physically smaller and possibly
more economical dialyzers than are currently available. A
smaller device will both require a lower blood priming
volume and reduce the blood membrane contact time. This
increase in efficiency also lowers the dialysate requirements
for a typical renal failure treatment, which both lowers the

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