Some studies show that cells are able to penetrate through pores that are smaller than cell size. It concerns especially Red Blood Cells but it also may concern different types of biological cells. Such penetration of small pores is a very significant problem in the filtration process, for example in micro- or ultrafiltration. Deformability of cells allows them to go through the porous membrane and contaminate permeate. This paper shows how cells can penetrate small cylindrical holes and tries to assess mechanical stress in a cell during this process. A new mathematical approach to this phenomenon was presented, based on assumptions that were made during the microscopic observation of Red Blood Cell aspiration into a small capillary. The computational model concerns Red Blood Cell geometry. The mathematical model allows to obtain geometrical relation as well as mechanical stress relations.

The opportunity to assess haemolysis in a designed artificial heart seems to be one of the most important stages in construction. We propose a new method for assessing haemolysis level in a rotary blood pump. This method is based on CFD calculations using large eddy simulations (LES). This paper presents an approach to haemolysis estimation and shows examples of numerical simulation. Our method does not determine the value of haemolysis but allows for comparison of haemolysis levels between different artificial heart constructions.

The following work analyzes the effect of the composition of a hemp-lime composite on key mechanical and physical properties. The article contains results from testing the compressive strength, vapor permeability, and thermal conductivity of the composite, depending on the composition of the mix. The mixes differed from each other in binder composition and in the proportion of binder to hemp shives. The obtained results were compared with the results from other scientific literature. Based on this, conclusions were drawn that the binder composition is of secondary importance for the analyzed physical and mechanical properties of the hemp-lime composite. The main property that determines the values of the thermal conductivity coefficient as well as the compression strength is the density of the material, which depends on the proportion of binder to aggregate and the level of compaction of the mix. The value of the diffusion resistance coefficient of the analyzed material was very low regardless of the composition of the composite.

In this study, the process of membrane cleaning by supercritical fluid extraction was investigated. Polypropylene microfiltration membranes, contaminated with oils, were treated in a batch process with a supercritical fluid (SCF). As extractant, pure supercritical carbon dioxide or supercritical carbon dioxide with admixtures of methanol, ethanol and isopropanol were used. Single-stage and multi-stage extraction was carried out and process efficiency was determined. The obtained results showed that addition of organic solvents significantly enhances the cleaning performance, which increases with increase of organic solvent concentration and decreases with increasing temperature. All three solvents showed a comparable effect of efficiency enhancement. The results confirmed that supercritical fluid extraction can be applied for polypropylene membrane cleaning.

The mathematical model of postproduction suspension concentration by microfiltration has been developed. This model describes a process conducted in a batch system with membrane washing by reverse flow of permeate. The model considerations concern filtration pseudocycles consisting of the filtration period and the membrane washing period. The balances of continuous phase volume, dispersed phase mass and energy, for each period of pseudocycle respectively, have been presented.