Toray Industries, Inc.

Akihiro Hayashi

Yoshiyuki Ueno

Suguru Ushiro

Hirokazu Sakaguchi

Masahiro Osabe

Kaori Akaike

Shiro Nosaka

The present invention aims to provide a porous separation membrane that does not suffer a significant decrease in the protein permeability even after long term use. The porous separation membrane has an asymmetric structure with a dense layer forming one surface layer and with a coarse layer forming the other surface layer, supports a biocompatible polymer, and meet the requirements (1) and (2) given below in surface analysis of a cross section containing the dense layer and the coarse layer performed by TOF-SIMS:

Porous separation membrane

Disclosed is a porous hollow fiber membrane containing a polysulfone-based polymer as a main component, which has an asymmetric structure in which the inner surface side is dense and the outer surface side is coarse, wherein an average of a minor axis diameter of pores of an inner surface is 20 nm or more and 40 nm or less, an open porosity of the inner surface is 10% or more and 30% or less, and a polymer including a monocarboxylic acid vinyl ester unit is supported on at least one of the outer surface and the inner surface. The present invention provides a hollow fiber membrane which has excellent removing performance of substances to be separated such as viruses, and can be used as a separation membrane having high permeability even in a treatment under low pressure.

Porous hollow fiber membrane

A copolymer is capable of being immobilized on a base material while maintaining a high antithrombotic property persistently without having to introduce heparin or an anticoagulant drug to the surface thereof. The copolymer includes monomer unit A, monomer unit B, and monomer unit C, wherein monomer unit C has a mole fraction of 0.5-40% with respect to the total amount of all constituent monomer units.

Copolymer and medical material containing the same

Disclosed is a hollow fiber membrane module including a case and a hollow fiber membrane built in the case, wherein the hollow fiber membrane contains a polysulfone-based polymer and a hydrophilic polymer, and satisfies the following (A) and (B), and an amount of an eluted substance contained in a liquid obtained by circulating ultrapure water heated at 37&#xb0; C. through a passage of an inner surface side of the hollow fiber membrane for 4 hours at 200 mL/min is 1.0 mg/mor less: (A) an insoluble component accounts for less than 3% by mass of the total mass of the hollow fiber membrane when the hollow fiber membrane is dissolved in N,N-dimethylacetamide; and (B) a flexible layer exists on a surface of a functional layer in a wet state and the flexible layer has a thickness of 7 nm or more. The present invention provides a hollow fiber membrane module including a hollow fiber membrane containing a polysulfone-based polymer and a hydrophilic polymer built therein, which elutes little eluted substance and exhibits high biocompatibility, while change in performance due to crosslinking of the hydrophilic polymer is suppressed.

Hollow fiber membrane module and manufacturing method thereof

A biological component adhesion-suppressing material includes a substrate provided with a functional layer having, fixed on a surface thereof that comes into contact with a biological component, a polymer including a saturated aliphatic monocarboxylic acid vinyl ester unit, wherein: when compositional analysis is performed on the surface of the functional layer using a TOF-SIMS device, the number of carbon atoms in an aliphatic chain representing an ion signal detected for saturated aliphatic carboxylic acid is 2-20; and an XPS measurement taken of the surface of the functional layer shows a peak derived from an ester group.

Biological component adhesion-suppressing material

A medical material is capable of suppressing adhesion of platelets and proteins even when in contact with biological components such as blood for an extended period of time. The medical material is a copolymer including hydrophobic units and hydrophilic units in which the hydrophobic units have a C2-20 terminal alkyl group in a side chain, the static contact angle of water in the copolymer is at least 30&#xb0; and less than 70&#xb0;, and the glass transition temperature of the copolymer exists at only one point in the range from 45&#xb0; C. to less than 90&#xb0; C.

Medical material, medical separation membrane, and blood purifier

The purpose of the present invention is to provide a porous membrane that has both high water permeability and excellent protein fractionation performance. Provided is a method for producing a porous membrane, said method comprising a step for discharging a membrane-forming dope that contains a hydrophilic polymer from a slit formed in a mouthpiece, and a step for, after the passage of the discharged membrane-forming dope through a dry part, solidifying the membrane-forming dope in a coagulation bath to give a porous membrane, wherein the cross-section area of the slit is 3-30 times inclusive as large as the cross-section area of the solidified porous membrane.

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Otsu, Japan

Akihiro Hayashi