Abstract

Membrane processes are used extensively in biomedical applications. This state of the art review presents the main applications including renal kidney, blood filtration, blood oxygenator, artificial liver, artificial pancreas, and drug delivery devices. For well-established treatments like dialysis, plasmapheresis, and blood oxygenator, the techniques are summarized by presenting membranes used, devices, configurations and treatments. The artificial liver and the artificial pancreas are not clinically used and some main aspects related to the development of these devices are given, including configurations and liver or pancreatic cells. Finally, drug delivery devices based on membranes, which are an important area in pharmaceutics, are summarized by focusing on diffusion and transdermal delivery systems, as well as colloids like liposomes and nanocapsules. These colloids with nanometric size are surrounded by a lipidic or polymeric thin membrane which controls drug transfer to the surrounding medium.