Bruna SILVA SOARES1, Moisés PINTO2, Isabel MARRUCHO1
1Centro de Química Estrutural and Departamento de Engenharia Química, Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisboa, Portugal
2Center of Physics and Engineering of Advanced Materials (CeFEMA) and Department of Chemical Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisboa, Portugal
Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation can support severe cardiac and pulmonary dysfunction (ECMO) since it stabilizes severe breathing and oxygenation problems, providing medical professionals time to identify and treat the underlying causes of organ failure. The membrane-based artificial lung is the main component of the extracorporeal cardiopulmonary support circuit (Figure 1). The circuit's key component is the gas exchange device, also referred to as the membrane lung or oxygenator. Deoxygenated blood from the patient is dispensed onto membrane surfaces, over which sweep gas fluxes pass; the membrane surface enables gas exchange between the two flows by diffusion. By boosting the blood flow through the device, oxygenation is boosted [1].
Ionic liquids (ILs) may hold the key to find a solution to this issue. Numerous studies have shown ILs´s strong affinity for CO2[2]. Few preliminary studies from literature shows that N-butyl-N-methylpyrrolidinium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide ([BMP][NTf2]) exhibits promising results, in what concerns O2 solubility and diffusivity [3].
The main objective of this work is to screen the potential of ILs to be used in ECMO, while investigating their single and mixed gas transport characteristics at various partial pressures and CO2/O2 compositions.
[1] N. L. Werner and P. K. Park, “Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO)/extracorporeal carbon dioxide removal (ECCO2R),” in Principles of Adult Surgical Critical Care, Springer International Publishing, 2016, pp. 105–114. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-33341-0_10.
[2] L. C. Tomé, D. Mecerreyes, C. S. R. R. Freire, L. P. N. Rebelo, and I. M. Marrucho, “Pyrrolidinium-based polymeric ionic liquid materials: New perspectives for CO2 separation membranes,” J Memb Sci, vol. 428, pp. 260–266, 2013, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.memsci.2012.10.044.
[3] A. Khan, C. A. Gunawan, and C. Zhao, “Oxygen Reduction Reaction in Ionic Liquids: Fundamentals and Applications in Energy and Sensors,” ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, vol. 5, no. 5. American Chemical Society, pp. 3698–3715, May 01, 2017. doi: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.7b00388.
Funding acknowledgement (if applicable).
Bruna F. Soares gratefully acknowledges the financial support of FCT/MCTES (Portugal) for PhD fellowship 2021.05450.BD. This work was financed by CQE project (UIDB/00100/2020).