Quality, Stability, and Safety Data of Packed Red Cells and Plasma Processed by Gravity Separation Using a New Fully Integrated Hollow-Fibre Filter Device

Figure 1

Figures 1(a) and 1(b) show the hollow-fibre filter in more detail. Each hollow-fibre filter is made of 600 capillary membranes, produced from polyethersulfon with a thickness of 100 𝜇m ± 25 μm. The capillaries are U-shaped (Figure 1(a)) fixed within the synthetic filter cylinder (Figure 1(b)) and moistened with a sodium chloride solution. The capillaries have a pore size of 0.5 μm ± 0.1 μm. The total length of the capillary amounts to 175.5 m with a diameter of 300 μm ± 40 μm. The hydrostatic pressure of the donation bag fixed above the filter is enough to press the erythrocytes into the erythrocytes bag. During the separation process the plasma penetrates the capillary membranes, is sampled in the filter cylinder and flows down to the plasma bag. Because of the cells’ volume the erythrocytes are not able to penetrate the membrane and flow along the U-shaped capillary to the upper exit in the erythrocytes bag hung at the same height and prefilled with the 100 mL PAGGS-M additive solution.

(a) Hollow-fibre filter (filter cylinder opened for better view)

(b) Hollow-fibre filter fixed within the synthetic filter cylinder