Design, Fabrication and Testing of a Novel Micro-Bubble Oxygenator for Blood Oxygenation

摘要

In the paper a novel, low power consumption, small and light weight piezoelectrically actuated micro-bubble generator for blood oxygenation system is designed, fabricated and tested. The main structure of the proposed generator adopts an annular piezoelectric ceramic which is coupled with a nickel nozzle plate. When an electric field is applied across the thickness of the piezoelectric and set it into deforms transversely. The radial strain causes the surface of the nozzle plate to expand or contract, which causes the entire structure to bend, and in turn transport oxygen micro-scaled bubbles into the blood flow for enhancing the oxygen content in blood. The sizes and formation process of the bubbles depend on the fluid flow velocity, the size of the orifice, the oxygen pressure and driving voltage and resonance frequency. In the experiment, a flow visualization setup employs a high magnification microscope and a high speed charge coupled device (CCD) camera to photograph the sizes of gaseous bubbles from the micro-bubble generator. Furthermore, an oxygen saturation measurement system setup utilizes CCO/SvO_2 catheter and oxygen saturation monitoring to measure oxygen saturation of blood.