Hollow fiber membrane

Originally developed in the 1960s for reverse osmosis applications, hollow fiber membranes have since become prevalent in water treatment, desalination, cell culture, medicine, and tissue engineering.

The properties of the membrane -such as average pore diameter and membrane thickness- can be finely tuned by changing the dimensions of the spinneret, temperature and composition of "dope" (polymer) and "bore" (solvent) solutions, length of air gap (for dry-jet wet spinning), temperature and composition of the coagulant, as well as the speed at which produced fiber is collected by a motorized spool.

Some of the polymers most commonly used for fabricating HFMs include cellulose acetate, polysulfone, polyethersulfone, and polyvinylidene fluoride.

In microfiltration a membrane pore diameter of 0.1 micrometers cuts-off microorganisms like germs and bacteria, Giardia cysts and other intestinal parasites, as well removing sediments.

[12] Hollow fibers can be used for drug efficacy testing in cancer research, as an alternative to the traditional, but more expensive, xenograft model.

Schematic diagram of a hollow fiber membrane, including a view of the membrane module and call outs for a cross section (top right), membrane transport (bottom left) and partial pressure of the solute. Modified by authors from [ 2 ]
SEM cross-section of a polysulfone hollow fiber membrane fabricated by nonsolvent-induced phase separation.
Extrusion of nascent hollow fiber membrane polymer solution through the annulus of a spinneret .
An example dry-jet wet spinning hollow fiber fabrication system in operation.
An example of a hollow fiber membrane cartridge.
A reinforced immersed hollow fiber membrane cassette used in membrane bioreactor process for water treatment [ 10 ]
A longitudinal cross section of a polysulfone hollow fiber membrane intraluminally cultured with 3T3 fibroblasts and stained with DAPI.