*Winner* Role of Electrokinetics in the Cleaning-Efficiency of a Dialyzer: Toward an Artificial-Kidney

Abstract

This poster won best graduate poster for Chemical Engineering.

As a path to this artificial kidney, the micro¬rheological properties of blood in the hemodialyzer are analyzed at the microscopic scale based on continuum mechanic approaches. Once the proper understanding of the microscopic behavior is attained (with the possible impact on the macroscopic scale), the system will be downscaled to a size ideal for potentially designing an artificial kidney.  As the system is downscaled the importance of electrokinetics comes into question in a more detailed manner. In fact, the role of electrokinetics in kidney function (as well as its malfunction) has come into consideration recently and is much debated. A glomerular capillary has three main layers of which have various characteristics that determine their filtering specificity due to size and charge. As a preliminary step toward a more detailed understanding, in this presentation, a single capillary of cylindrical geometry will be used as a potential domain for a “nephron”- the most crucial element of the kidney filtration. Principles of EKHD (see Pascal et al., 2016) will be used in modeling the “capillary-nephron” domain to understand the role of membrane imperfections in the filtration efficiency. These potential malfunctions will be mimicked with suitable mathematical functions as the capillary boundary conditions. The role of electrokinetics in influencing the separation performance of the capillary-nephron domain under a variety of operating conditions will be considered in the development of both an asymptotic solution for separation (cleaning) efficiency and other suitable approaches.