Team Diality

Product

Design

Diality’s primary goal for their portable hemodialysis system is to increase the accessibility of hemodialysis treatment to improve both treatment efficiency and quality of life of patients. One major driver of the hemodialysis sytem’s cost are the disposable dialysate filtering units, which contains the absorbent material. Currently an expensive metal phosphate is being used, but we experimented to find a less expensive metal phosphate to use. We partnered with Diality to synthesize a low cost metal phosphate to reduce cost while simultaneously reaching performance expectations, such as an ammonium capacity in 20 mM dialysate >1 mmol/g and toxin leaching < 17 ppm. We were able to reduce the cost by ~90% using raw materials with a low cost and simple synthesis methods using common equipment found in most laboratories.

How Does the Product Address the Problem?

By reducing the cost of the adsorbent material we reduced the overall cost of Diality’s portable hemodialysis system and the financial burden on patients who must routinely purchase the disposable filtering unit. Therefore making critical treatment available to a more diverse demographic of patients. Our adsorbent material is novel, synthesized in-house, solving the problem of expensive treatments and allowing an alternative treatment option, complete at-home hemodialysis, that benefits patients in treatment efficiency, accessibility and cost savings.

Safety

To mitigate potential risks, our material has been tested for its performance in both adsorption and safety to ensure all failure modes are prevented. First, we verified our material’s composition using Attenuated Total Reflection-Fourier Transform Infrared (ATR-FTIR) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD). Once confirmed that the material is of the correct composition, we moved onto performance tests. Our material was subjected to a mock filtration unit to prove adequate flow rates could be maintained. We complied with ISO 23500: Preparation and quality management of fluids for haemodialysis and related therapies to ensure the best quality.

Competitors

Portable Hemodialysis Systems

Adsorbent Mateials

Market

Team Info

Team
Lead

Ja'lyse Mason - 4th yr. BME
Masonjl@uci.edu

Design and Manufacturing Lead

Chaz Fazio - 4th yr. AE/MSE
Fazioc@uci.edu

Business and Marketing Advisor

Janncarlo Flores - 4th yr. BME
Janncarf@uci.edu

Acknowledgements

Clayton Poppe - Chief Technology Officer, Diality

Brandon Borrillo - R&D Engineer, Diality

Vivian Chen - Chemist, Diality

Dr. Chris Hoo - MSE Professor, UCI

Jie Shen - MSE TA, UCI

Elements

i = 0;

while (!deck.isInOrder()) {
    print 'Iteration ' + i;
    deck.shuffle();
    i++;
}

print 'It took ' + i + ' iterations to sort the deck.';