ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the potential of post treatment strategies for spun fibers to improve their properties. It begins with the synthesis of a suitable material, and then moved on to developing an extrusion mechanism to spin clinical grade hollow-fiber membranes. The chapter provides a closure to the technology of hemodialysis membrane synthesis. It discusses suitable postprocessing of the spun fibers. Fundamental insights into cytocompatibility and hemocompatibility of dialysis membrane surfaces have also been developed. The chapter focuses on membranes and their surface properties: annealing and its effect on the pore sizes of membranes, change in surface properties due to annealing, changes in cytocompatibility and hemocompatibility, identifying fundamental parameters on which these two depend, and whether they can be tuned to yield desired cytocompatibility and hemocompatibility of membranes. It is important to synthesize high-performance dialyzers (HPMs) and high cutoff membranes (HCOs) and understand the effect of annealing on the membranes.
