新規血漿分離膜開発における課題

抄録

The recent advancement in blood purification, including artificial Kidney and plasma separation techniques, is remarkable. In the course of this development, various types of membranes have played an important role.
In developing a plasma separator, due consideration should be given to the module design as well as to that of the membrane so that a high shear rate can be obtained under a given set of operating conditions. Use of plasma sepation membrane makes it possible to separate plasma components from blood components almost completely. Meanwhile, plasma fractionation membranes are capable of separating one solute from another satisfactorily, such as IgM fractions from albumin or cholesterol from albumin, if they are different enough in size. However, it remains to be shown whether some solutes of almost the same size, like albumin and IgG fractions, can be satisfactorily separated with the membrane alone.
Since blood purification is applied for living organisms, the safety and blood compatibility of the membranes are of the most importance. Almost all membranes used for blood purification are made of general-purpose polymeric materials, which have been originally developed for industial use. Opinions are divided on the interaction of the blood and the membrane. In developing new membranes for blood purification, it is one of the most important theme whether the membrane should be as inactive as possible or it should active the blood positively.
At present, plasma separation is conducted on the principle of using the difference of size in solutes, but there is a limit to this principle. To solve the problem, new plasma separation procedures combining physical and chemical methods, like electric charge, adsorption and temperature, are now under development by some researchers.