Bloody substitute

Students in the Chemical Engineering Department at Loughborough University in the UK have developed a completely synthetic alternative to blood that could be used for transfusion purposes.

The work was conducted as a final-year MEng design project, supervised by Dr. Klaus Hellgardt and Professor Chris Rielly.

The aim of the project was to develop a useable product as well as a manufacturing process that could supply 10% of the UK’s demand.

The product the chemists have developed is compatible with all blood groups, is stable for several months at room temperature and remains completely sterile.

The key to the artificial blood is a fluorinated hydrocarbon that can carry more oxygen than real blood. A system of novel adsorption and distillation processes has been developed by student Simon Davies to purify the required chemicals to pharmaceutical grade.

The artificial blood is a white emulsion of fluorinated hydrocarbons dispersed in water and surfactants, using either a high-pressure homogeniser, or using a continuous flow ultrasonic reactor that was developed by a second student, Abs Majid.

The nano-droplets (300 nm) generated in this emulsification process must be small enough to traverse even the narrowest capillaries in the body. This is ensured using a high shear cross-flow filtration module developed by a third student, Tim Windebank.

For more information on blood substitutes, see the Euro Blood Substitutes website: www.eurobloodsubstitutes.com