Proposed methods for designing an air in line detection system

The incidence of air embolism and subsequent complications during the use of medication infusion pumps has created the need for reliable, sensitive, and continuous means of monitoring the fluid line for the presence of air bubbles. For example, in blood processing, such as dialysis oxygenation, blood fractionation, etc, it is extremely important that the absence of blood, resulting from an air leak or any other reason, is immediately detected so that the tubing can be clamped before an air bubble is allowed to enter the patient's vein along with the blood. The current paper deals with this problem by proposing methods for designing an accurate Air-In-Line Detection system. All the common used techniques have been evaluated. A medication infusion pump was used to experiment with the presented devices. The advantages of the proposed methods can be summarized in the reliability, cost-effectiveness, and small size of the final device.