Computer-assisted numerical analysis for oxygen and carbon dioxide mass transfer in blood oxygenators.

A two-dimensional numeric simulator is developed to predict the nonlinear, convective-reactive, oxygen mass exchange in a cross-flow hollow fiber blood oxygenator. The numeric simulator also calculates the carbon dioxide mass exchange, as hemoglobin affinity to oxygen is affected by the local pH value, which depends mostly on the local carbon dioxide content in blood. Blood pH calculation inside the oxygenator is made by the simultaneous solution of an equation that takes into account the blood buffering capacity and the classical Henderson-Hasselbach equation. The modeling of the mass transfer conductance in the blood comprises a global factor, which is a function of the Reynolds number, and a local factor, which takes into account the amount of oxygen reacted to hemoglobin. The simulator is calibrated against experimental data for an in-line fiber bundle. The results are: (i) the calibration process allows the precise determination of the mass transfer conductance for both oxygen and carbon dioxide; (ii) very alkaline pH values occur in the blood path at the gas inlet side of the fiber bundle; (iii) the parametric analysis of the effect of the blood base excess (BE) shows that (.)V(CO₂) is similar in the case of blood metabolic alkalosis, metabolic acidosis, or normal BE, for a similar blood inlet P(CO₂), although the condition of metabolic alkalosis is the worst case, as the pH in the vicinity of the gas inlet is the most alkaline; (iv) the parametric analysis of the effect of the gas flow to blood flow ratio (QG/QB) shows that (.)V(CO₂) variation with the gas flow is almost linear up to QG/QB = 2.0. (.)V(O₂) is not affected by the gas flow as it was observed that by increasing the gas flow up to eight times, the (.)V(O₂) grows only 1%. The mass exchange of carbon dioxide uses the full length of the hollow-fiber only if Q(G) /Q(B)> 2.0, as it was observed that only in this condition does the local variation of pH and blood P(CO₂) comprise the whole fiber bundle.