Secure Surgical Solutions, LLC is a collaboration between Engineers and Clinicians with a shared mission of providing communities, hospitals, and healthcare facilities with reliable, low cost technology for on-site saline production.
This venture was developed by three researchers named Dr. Raju Badireddy, Dr. Richard Grunert, and Dr. David Sobel. Their mission was created after Dr. Grunert had an eye-opening experience while performing field work in Rwanda. While there, he was tasked with performing a surgery that requires 40 liters of saline, but only had 2 liters available. After attempting to perform the surgery, Dr. Grunert was not able to finish due to the low supply of saline and had to close the patient up before the procedure was complete.
Recognizing the gravity of the situation, Dr. Grunert and Dr. Badireddy joined forces with Dr. David Watson Sobel to develop a device that could alleviate these saline shortages.
This team is committed to advancing the field of water recovery through the use of membrane filtration and separation. This will allow the healthcare industry, humanitarian mission, and at-risk communities to gain surgical fluid security.
Through finding environmentally friendly and energy efficient methods for water reproduction, this team hopes to enable a wide variety of industries to rapidly purify and disinfect local fluid sources.
The Science behind the Technology:
The Secure Surgical Solutions team has developed a portable, suitcase-sized device that converts low-quality water to medical fluid/ drinking water by utilizing a forward osmosis filtration system.
Forward Osmosis is a naturally occurring process for the separation of fluids through a semipermeable membrane. In this process, the fluids move from a low concentration to a high concentration, bringing the two concentrations to an equilibrium. However, contaminants and pollutants many times block the flow path of the water- this blockage is called fouling.
In order to overcome this fouling, the research team has developed a patented electric field that is embedded into the membrane, which prevents debris and pollution from hindering the filtration process. Not only do these electrodes speed up the process and decrease energy usage, but they also extend the life of the filter, making it much more cost effective. Each device is able to make around 14,600 liters of saline a year, comparing this with the same amount of saline from the monopolized companies, there will be a savings of over $235,000 after the first five years, which doesn’t even include shipping and distribution costs.
This novel electric field-assisted forward osmotic (EFO) device has shown that the oscillating electric fields are very effective in preventing membrane fouling in the presence of model foulants, thereby allowing for near 100% water recovery.
Once the source water has been filterthe the purified water is drawn into the attached sterile bags filled with minerals in order to create a variety of medical grade fluids.
Additionally, the device is run completely on solar power or rechargeable batteries, which eliminates the reliance on built infrastructure and reliable power grids.