Hollow Fiber Membrane Technology

Hollow fiber membrane (HFM) technology is one of the main research areas of our group. Our group has built an in-house pilot plant for spinning HFMs using a dry-wet spinning technique. With it, we are preparing new types of HFMs for three main areas: biomedical engineering, water treatment, and gas separation applications. Our research on the HFMs has resulted in several papers and patents.

(1) Hollow fiber membranes for biomedical engineering applications

We are focusing on developing HFMs and substrates based on them for the hemodialysis, bioartificial organ development (Kidney, liver, and pancreas), and mass culture. We have developed novel efficient HFMs for the hemodialysis, which are superior to the commercial dialyzer membranes in terms of biocompatibility and uremic toxins’ clearance performance. The uremic toxins’ clearance is over 5-times better than the commercial dialyzer membranes. No side reactions have been observed with our HFMs. We have also established the protocol for mass production. In addition to this, we are also developing HFM-based bioartificial organs to support organ failure/diseased patients till a suitable donor available. We have developed a lab-scale prototype of an extracorporeal HFM-based unit for the bioartificial kidney application. The unit, in addition to the blood purification, enriches the purified blood with the essential metabolites secreted by the functional kidney cells. We have also made an HFM-based device for the bioartificial pancreas. The device can be placed in the body with pancreatic cells, which secret the insulin hormone in a controlled way. In a month-long lab-scale study, the device helped in controlling diabetes in rats with no signs of side reactions. We have also prepared several HFM-based substrates/constructs for the bioartificial liver application, which support the functional liver cells. A lab-scale liver cell bioreactor has also been developed and tested favorably with goat liver primary cells.

(2) Hollow fiber membranes for water treatment

We are also developing performance-efficient solutions based on nano-enabled HFM technology for the removal of several toxic water contaminants such as endocrine disrupting chemicals, dyes, oil, antibiotics, and phenolic compounds from the contaminated water. In addition to this, efforts are also being directed towards developing efficient HFMs, which simultaneously exhibit both high flux and high flux recovery ratios for the water treatment. We have developed HFMs, which show efficient performance with the practical, real-world example of lake water and municipal wastewater.

(3) Hollow fiber membranes for gas separations

We are developing high-performing HFMs, via incorporating nanoadditives and coating, to address the trade-off between permeability and selectivity, as reported by Robeson for the separation of some commercially significant gas pairs like CO2/CH4, O2/N2, and CO2/N2. Thes e membranes will have applications in biogas concentration for enhancing its calorific value as well as providing low-cost separation technologies.

Relevant journal publications for biomedical device design and manufacture:

1. Akshay Modi, Surendra Kumar Verma, Jayesh Bellare, “Surface-functionalized poly(ether sulfone) composite hollow fiber membranes with improved biocompatibility and uremic toxins clearance for bioartificial kidney application” ACS Applied Bio Materials 3 (2020) 1589-1597 [Link]
2. Akshay Modi, Surendra Kumar Verma, Jayesh Bellare, “Hydrophilic ZIF-8 decorated GO nanosheets improve biocompatibility and separation performance of polyethersulfone hollow fiber membranes: A potential membrane material for bioartificial liver application” Materials Science and Engineering C 91 (2018) 524-540 [Link]
3. Surendra Kumar Verma, Akshay Modi, Atul Kumar Singh, Rohit Teotia, Sachin Kadam, Jayesh Bellare, “Functionally coated polyethersulfone hollow fiber membranes: A substrate for enhanced HepG2/C3A functions” Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces 164 (2018) 358–369 [Link]
4. Surendra Kumar Verma, Akshay Modi, Jayesh Bellare, “Three-dimensional multiscale fiber matrices: Development and characterization for increased HepG2 functional maintenance for bio-artificial liver application” RSC Biomaterials Science 6 (2018) 280–291[Link][Featured as an issue cover article]
5. Surendra Kumar Verma, Akshay Modi, Atul Kumar Singh, Rohit Teotia, Jayesh Bellare, “Improved hemodialysis with hemocompatible polyethersulfone hollow fiber membranes: In-vitro performance” Journal of Biomedical Materials Research: Part B - Applied Biomaterials 106 (2018) 1286–1298 [Link]
6. Akshay Modi, Surendra Kumar Verma, Jayesh Bellare, “Graphene oxide nanosheets and d-α-Tocopheryl polyethylene glycol 1000 succinate (TPGS) doping improves biocompatibility and ultrafiltration in polyethersulfone hollow fiber membranes” Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 504 (2017) 86–100 [Link]
7. Rohit S. Teotia, Sachin Kadam, Atul Kumar Singh, Surendra Kumar Verma, Ashutosh Bahulekar, Sujata Kanetkar, Jayesh Bellare, “Islet encapsulated implantable composite hollow fiber membrane based device: A bioartificial pancreas” Materials Science and Engineering: C 77(2016) 857-866[Link]
8. Ganpat J. Dahe, Rohit S. Teotia, Sachin S. Kadam, Jayesh R. Bellare. "The biocompatibility and separation performance of antioxidative polysulfone/vitamin E TPGS composite hollow fiber membranes." Biomaterials 32(2) (2011) 352-365[Link]

Relevant journal publications for water treatment:

1. Akshay Modi, Jayesh Bellare, “Efficient removal of 2,4-dichlorophenol from contaminated water and alleviation of membrane fouling by high flux polysulfone-iron oxide/graphene oxide composite hollow fiber membranes” Journal of Water Process Engineering 33 (2020) 101113 [Link]
2. Preety Kumari, Akshay Modi, Jayesh Bellare, “Enhanced flux and antifouling property on municipal wastewater of polyethersulfone hollow fiber membranes by embedding carboxylated multi-walled carbon nanotubes and a vitamin E derivative” Separation and Purification Technology 235 (2019) 116199 [Link]
3. Akshay Modi, Jayesh Bellare, “Efficient separation of biological macromolecular proteins by polyethersulfone hollow fiber ultrafiltration membranes modified with Fe3O4 nanoparticles-decorated carboxylated graphene oxide nanosheets” International Journal of Biological Macromolecules 135 (2019) 798-807 [Link]
4. Akshay Modi, Jayesh Bellare, “Efficient removal of dyes from water by high flux and superior antifouling polyethersulfone hollow fiber membranes modified with ZnO/cGO nanohybrid” Journal of Water Process Engineering 29 (2019) 100783 [Link]
5. Akshay Modi, Jayesh Bellare, “Efficiently improved oil/water separation using high flux and superior antifouling polysulfone hollow fiber membranes modified with functionalized carbon nanotubes/graphene oxide nanohybrid” Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering 7 (2019) 102944 [Link]
6. Akshay Modi, Jayesh Bellare, “Copper sulfide nanoparticles/carboxylated graphene oxide nanosheets blended polyethersulfone hollow fiber membranes: Development and characterization for efficient separation of oxybenzone and bisphenol A from water” Polymer 163 (2019) 57-67 [Link]

Relevant journal publication for gas separations:

1. Akshay Modi, Surendra Kumar Verma, Jayesh Bellare, “Carboxylated carbon nanotubes/polyethersulfone hollow fiber mixed matrix membranes: Development and characterization for enhanced gas separation performance” MRS Advances 3 (2018) 3103-3109 [Link]