Fabrication and characterization of Poly-sulfone/Zeolite Hemodialysis membrane for protein bound and water-soluble toxins rejection capacity

Abstract

Hemodialysis membranes have been used widely for the end stage renal disease patients. In hemodialysis, the solute molecules based on their molecular weights are separated by using a semi-permeable membrane. Decreasing the therapy time and efficient removal of toxin materials from the blood are the key for the optimized hemodialysis process. Membranes containing zeolites have the tendency to remove uremic toxins via molecular sieving while performing the blood dialysis. The addition of various pore-gen and adsorbent in the membrane can certainly impact the membrane production along with creatinine adsorption but it is not directed which pore-gen along with zeolite leads to better performance. The research was aimed at reducing the adsorption of protein bound and uremic toxins by using mordenite zeolite as an adsorbent while polyethylene glycol and cellulose acetate as pore generator. Membranes were cast by phase-inversion technique which is cheap and easy to handle as compared to electro-spinning technique. Through this strategy, the ability to adsorb creatinine and solute rejection percentage were measured and compared against the pristine PSF, when only PEG used as a pore-gen and when PEG along with CA was used as a pore-gen along with different concentration of zeolite. The experiments revealed that PEG membranes can give a better solute rejection percentage (93%) but with a low creatinine adsorption capacity that is 7654 µg/g and low bio-compatibility (PRT 392s, HR 0.46 %). However, PEG/CA membranes give maximum creatinine adsorption that is 9643 µg/g and also better biocompatibility (PRT 490s, HR 0.37%) but with the low BSA rejection (72%) as compared to the pristine PSF and PEG membranes. The present study concluded that large pore size decreases solute rejection percentage but increases creatinine uptake level and concentration of zeolite also affects membrane performance during hemodialysis