What are the techniques for plasma separation during the plasmapheresis procedure?
The two major modalities to separate the plasma from the blood during a plasmapheresis procedure are by centrifugation and membrane filtration. The centrifugation method uses centrifugal force to separate whole blood into plasma and cellular fractions according to their density. The membrane filtration technique is based on a synthetic membrane filter composed of different pore sizes. This filter is similar to a hemodialysis filter and is composed of many hollow fiber tubes with relatively large pore sizes (0.2 to 0.6 μm in diameter) and arranged in parallel.