A small-scale, rolled-membrane microfluidic artificial lung designed towards future large area manufacturing.

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Materials Science

Background:

• Artificial lungs supplement pulmonary function, with microfluidic artificial lungs (μAL) offering high surface area and biomimetic flow.
• Current μAL manufacturing limits scalability for human applications despite demonstrated gas transfer efficiencies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a new, scalable manufacturing technology for microfluidic artificial lungs using a continuous rolling and bonding procedure.
• To evaluate the gas transfer efficiency and pressure drop of μAL fabricated with this novel method.

Main Methods:

• A continuous "rolling" and bonding procedure assembled a four-layer polydimethyl siloxane (PDMS) device from a single patterned layer.
• The device featured a biomimetic branching blood flow network, 10 μm artificial capillaries, and a 66 μm gas transfer membrane.
• Gas transfer efficiency was assessed using blood at flow rates of 0.1-1.25 ml/min with pure O2 and atmospheric air as sweep gases.

Main Results:

• The fabricated μAL demonstrated gas transfer efficiencies closely matching theoretical predictions for oxygenation and CO2 removal.
• Observed pressure drops were marginally higher than theoretically predicted values.
• The manufacturing method proved effective for a small-scale device and is expected to scale to larger areas.

Conclusions:

• The presented rolling and bonding technique offers a scalable manufacturing solution for microfluidic artificial lungs.
• This method is the first capable of easily creating large-area microfluidic devices from PDMS, paving the way for clinical translation.
• Further development is needed to optimize pressure drop and fully realize the potential of these scalable μAL.