Studies on the effect of temperature and pressure on the permeation of haemodialyser membrane

Artificial membranes have made an important contribution to medicine. There is a tremendous market potential for synthetic membranes particularly hemodialyser membranes and the search for the suitable membrane is steadily on the rise. Cellulose acetate membrane was used for this study. Its physico-chemical properties such as hardness, tensile strength, percentage elongation and water absorption were studied. A permeation cell was designed and developed to study the permeation of urea. The transmembrane pressure was varied from 50 to 250 mm Hg and the effect of permeation was studied. The temperature of the system was varied from 25/spl deg/C to 50/spl deg/C and the effect of temperature on the permeation of urea was studied.