Predicting the Hermeticity of Compression Seals in Microchannel Hemodialysers

Most end stage renal disease patients receive kidney hemodialysis three to four times per week at central medical facilities. At-home kidney dialysis increases the convenience and frequency of hemodialysis treatments which has been shown to produce better patient outcomes. One limiting factor in realizing home hemodialysis treatments is the cost of the hemodialyser. Microchannel hemodialysers produced using compression sealing techniques show promise for reducing the size and cost of hemodialysers. Challenges include the use of a 25 μm thick elastoviscoplastic mass transfer membrane for gasketing. This paper provides a framework for predicting the hermeticity of these compression seals. The mechanical properties of a Gambro AN69ST membrane are determined and used to establish limits on the dimensional tolerances of the polycarbonate laminae containing sealing boss used to seal the hemodialyser. The resulting methods are applied to the fabrication of a hemodialysis device showing constraints on the scaling of this method to larger device sizes. The resulting hemodialysis device is used to perform urea mass transfer experiments without leakage.