Abstract
An artificial gill, which transfers oxygen from water to air, driven by photo energy, was developed with dissolved MoIVO(tmp) in o-xylene as an oxygen carrier solution. The oxygen affinity of oxygen carrier solution varies with photo-irradiation. The ratio of the mass transfer coefficient of the oxygen carrier solution to that of the water was 0.746 in oxygen uptake and 0.654 in oxygen release, respectively. The scaling up for a human at rest was estimated with the ratio of mass transfer coefficient. In designing a plant type artificial gill, which is for supplying oxygen to a closed space underwater such as submerged vessel, the required membrane surface area, the seawater flow rate and the reservoir tank volume were 123 m2, 0.00533 m3/s, and 5.06 m3, respectively. These values increased as oxygen partial pressure of seawater decreased. However, this artificial gill enables oxygen uptake even at low oxygen partial pressure of water such as 10.0 kPa, and may be useful for human underwater activity.
