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US 4,396,584 AGranted
Blood oxygenator
AssigneeMike Burgess
InventorsMike Burgess, Cyril I. Hall
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AssigneeMike Burgess
InventorsMike Burgess, Cyril I. Hall
Estimating the term…
A blood oxygenator is equipped with a sparger having a passageway formed by two vertically aligned fluid impervious cones, one upright and one inverted, between the bases of which a porous disc is positioned. An oxygen inlet communicates with the porous disc to radially inject oxygen into the passageway from the periphery of the porous disc. The blood is transformed from a liquid to a foam as it rises in the passageway. At the outlet of the sparger an oxygenation chamber includes a serpentine cascade which prolongs contact between the blood and bubbles of gas containing oxygen. The outlet of the cascade empties into a reservoir which has a concave foam filter therein defining a defoaming chamber and a screen having uniform interstices surrounding the foam filter to form a bubble point barrier. The screen prevents undissolved gaseous emboli in the blood from passing from the defoaming chamber toward the arterial outlet of the reservoir.
In a sparger for a blood oxygenator which defines a passageway, a venous inlet at the lower extremity of said passageway, an outlet at the upper extremity of said passageway, and an oxygen inlet means, the improvement wherein said passageway is annular and of uniform width and has fluid impervious walls, and the width of said passageway is between about one thirty-second and three-eighths of an inch, and the cross sectional area of said passageway narrows with increasing height above a region of maximum cross section to said outlet, and said oxygen inlet means has a porous, radial, disc-edge periphery in communication with said passageway at said region of maximum cross section.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.