Facilitated Transport of Lipophilic Toxins Through Polysulfone Membrane using Albumin as a Carrier

Abstract

The chloromethylated/aminated asymmetric polysulfone ultrafiltration membrane with finger pores was made by the phase inversion process. The albumin-fixed facilitated transport membrane was prepared by cross-linking bovine serum albumin (BSA) into the membrane with 1,1′-carbonyldiimidazole (CDI). It was used to remove a lipophilic toxin, bilirubin, from the simulation plasma. The experiment results showed that the transfer rate of bilirubin was obviously enhanced after fixing albumin into the high-flux asymmetric membrane. The clearance of bilirubin was 43.7%. In addition, the effect of membrane thickness on facilitated transport was discussed.