Evaluation of the oxygen transfer performance of a small membrane oxygenator

A series of small-sized membrane oxygenators ( N = 10) has been developed with 90–100 aligned microporous polypropylene hollow fibers placed within a sheath hermetically sealed at both ends to isolate the perfusion solution. A hydrodynamic set-up was assembled to evaluate oxygenator performance in terms of gas and perfusate flow, perfusion pressure, and temperature drop over the range of flow rates 5–70 ml/min.