Infusion bags are widely used in clinical treatment with which the medicine can be directly applied to the venous blood increasing therapeutic effect. There are two main categories of infusion bags: PVC and Non-PVC. Today most of the non-PVC infusion bags are made of multi-layer copolymerized compound membrane, which contains PP, PE, PA and SEBS, etc. Non-PVC is the safest material of infusion bag by now. It is free of plasticizer, which doesn’t adsorb or react with the liquid medicine. In addition, non-PVC infusion bag is featured with low temperature resistance and alkali separation problem with the glass bottle will not happen to non-PVC infusion bags.

Sometimes during storage period, color change or sediments may occur to the fluid medicine inside the infusion bag when the ingredients including vitamin C, metal ions, bromide, alcohols, arylamine and phenothiazine etc. are oxidized. As a result, the medicine may become much less effective. There are mainly two ways in which such problems can be avoided. One is to reduce the oxygen content contained in the infusion bag and the other one is to use infusion bag with ultra-high oxygen barrier property.

In order to reduce the oxygen content inside the infusion bags, nitrogen is injected into the infusion bags, which improves the concentration of nitrogen inside the infusion bags and reduces the concentration of oxygen in the same time. Therefore the infusion bags are required to have sufficient barrier property against nitrogen so that the concentration of nitrogen inside infusion bag can be maintained at a high level.

This article provides a test method of nitrogen barrier property of infusion bag for your reference. The test specimen is nitrogen-filled infusion bag and the testing instrument is Labthink’s VAC-V2 Gas Permeability Tester.

Figure 1. Nitrogen-filled Infusion Bag

Labthink’s VAC-V2 Gas Permeability Tester adopts differential pressure method where the sample is mounted in a gas transmission cell so as to form a sealed semi-barrier between two chambers. One chamber contains the test gas at a specific high pressure, and the other chamber, at a lower pressure, receives the permeating gas. The gas permeability of the sample can be calculated on the basis of pressure change.

Figure 2. Labthink’s VAC-V2 Gas Permeability Tester

The tests can be performed according to the following procedures.

Connect the nitrogen gas supply to the instrument.

Set test parameters. The test temperature should be 23℃ and the test humidity should be 0%RH.

Run the software and set parameters. Then start the tests.

The test results will be automatically calculated and displayed after tests.

Turn off the gas supply and switch off the instrument.

Figure 3. Clamp the Specimen

For more details about VAC-V2 Gas Permeability Tester, please visit www.labthink.com

About Labthink Instruments Co., Ltd:

Labthink Instruments Co., Ltd is one leading supplier of packaging testing instruments, which is headquartered in Jinan, China and operated in Boston, U.S.A.