AN ARTIFICIAL LUNG BASED ON GAS EXCHANGE AND BLOOD FLOW

This work presents a fluidic system and its use as an extracorporeal, diffusive gas exchange device for the modification of the oxygen and carbon dioxide partial pressure in blood. We report layout specifications and flow parameter, which meet the conflicting requirements of an effective gas exchange. Evaluation models with 400 parallel micro channels and a gas compartment bordering the micro channels on two sides were fabricated. Their gas exchange was characterized. The occurrence of a cell free blood plasma layer at the channel walls was analyzed using a laser scanning microscope. With the introduced method no plasma layer was detected.