FlexOxy - Manufacturing process for oxygenators of different volumes
Ref.-No. 5108
Keywords: Oxygenatoren, Blutkreislauf, gewickelte Oxygenatoren, Medizintechnik
With extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, the physician only has oxygenators in a few different sizes. A suitable volume would be particularly important for infants and small children in order to relieve the blood circulation.
The economic use of traditional manufacturing processes for different volume sizes of the manufactured oxygenators is severely limited due to the high tool costs and is linked to critical quantities of each volume size.
FlexOxy is a novel manufacturing process for wound oxygenators. FlexOxy enables the production of oxygenators with different volumes with the same housing, the same core and the same fiber mats. The volume of the oxygenator and the size of the membrane surface are set by the position of the displaceable core in relation to the housing and by an adapted adhesive. The established production processes can be used with specific mastery of specific supplementary parameters such as core position and amount of joining substance.
Competitive Advantages
- Flexible adjustment of blood volume and membrane surface
- Low cost
- Use of one manufacturing process for different volumes
Commercial Opportunities
Commercialization includes manufacturing of oxygenators in different intermediate sizes despite keeping the existing production processes and without increasing production costs with size-independent approval.
Current Status
A German and an international patent application have been filed. On behalf of University Hospital RWTH Aachen, we offer interested companies the opportunity to license and further develop the technology.
—
An invention of University Hospital RWTH Aachen.
