A cost-effective extracorporeal magnetically-levitated centrifugal blood pump employing a disposable magnet-free impeller

In the field of rotary blood pumps, contactless support of the impeller by a magnetic bearing has been identified as a promising method to reduce blood damage and enhance durability. The authors developed a two-degrees-of-freedom radial controlled magnetic bearing system without a permanent magnet in the impeller in order that a low-cost disposable pump-head for an extracorporeal centrifugal blood pump could be manufactured more easily. Stable levitation and contactless rotation of the ‘magnet-free’ impeller were realized for a prototype blood-pump that made use of this magnetic bearing. The run-out of the impeller position at between 1000 r/min and 3000 r/min was less than 40 µm in the radial-controlled directions. The total power consumption of the magnetic bearing was less than 1 W at the same rotational speeds. When the pump was operated, a flow rate of 5 l/min against a head pressure of 78.66 kPa was achieved at a rotational speed of 4000 r/min, which is sufficient for extracorporeal circulation support. The proposed technology offers the advantage of low-cost mass production of disposable pump heads.