Multi-Chamber Parenteral Nutrition Bag With Peelable Seals
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing multi-chamber bags for parenteral nutrition struggle to stably accommodate all macronutrients and micronutrients, particularly vitamins and trace elements, while ensuring stability during handling, sterilization, transport, and storage, and allowing for easy, mistake-proof reconstitution without incomplete activation.
Innovation Solution
A flexible multi-chamber bag design with peelably sealing walls separates the bag into at least five chambers, including chambers for carbohydrates, amino acids, lipids, vitamins, and trace elements, allowing for one-step reconstitution by rupturing the seals, and is terminally heat-sterilizable to ensure stability and safety.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a multi-chamber bag contains chambers with very different volumes (large macronutrient chambers and small micronutrient chambers), then the bag can accommodate all necessary nutrients, but the pressure exerted on peelable seals by large volume chambers is higher than that of small volume chambers, making it difficult to ensure stable seals during handling while still allowing easy reconstitution
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by designing chambers with different geometries tailored to their specific volume requirements. Small micronutrient chambers have compact geometries that reduce pressure on seals, while large macronutrient chambers have expanded geometries that distribute pressure. This localized geometric optimization allows the bag to accommodate vastly different volumes while maintaining seal stability across all chambers.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent utilizes dimensional variation by arranging chambers in a three-dimensional configuration where smaller chambers are positioned strategically to balance the pressure distribution from larger chambers. The spatial arrangement in multiple dimensions allows different volume chambers to coexist while maintaining overall pressure equilibrium on the peelable seals.
2Reliability
If peelable sealing walls are designed to be strong enough for production and transport, then reliability during handling is improved, but ease of rupture for reconstitution is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies parameter changes by optimizing the material properties and geometric dimensions of the peelable seals to achieve the right balance between strength and rupture ease. The seal design incorporates specific material selections and dimensional parameters that provide sufficient strength for handling during production and transport, while remaining vulnerable to controlled rupture during the reconstitution process when appropriate force is applied.
Solution Approach 2:
The peelable seals are designed with dynamic characteristics that allow their mechanical properties to be context-dependent. During handling, the seals exhibit high strength and stability, but during reconstitution, when external force is applied, they transition to a rupture-prone state. This dynamic behavior is achieved through careful design of the seal structure that responds differently to various levels of applied force.
3Ease of operation
If a multi-chamber bag is designed for one-step reconstitution by rupturing all seals simultaneously, then ease of operation is improved, but the risk of incomplete activation between chambers increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies segmentation by dividing the seal system into multiple independent peelable sealing walls that can be ruptured simultaneously through a single reconstitution action. Each chamber is separated by its own peelable seal, allowing all chambers to be activated in one step while maintaining independent control over each seal's rupture, thereby preventing incomplete activation.
Solution Approach 2:
The seal design incorporates preliminary features that ensure simultaneous rupture of all peelable sealing walls when reconstitution force is applied. The seals are geometrically and materially configured so that the first force applied to open one chamber automatically propagates to open all other seals, ensuring complete activation without requiring multiple steps.
4Ease of manufacture
If the bag is designed to be filled from one side only, then ease of manufacture is improved, but device complexity increases due to the need for parallel chamber arrangement and multiple filling tubes
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies segmentation by dividing the bag into multiple chambers that are arranged in parallel and can be filled simultaneously from one side through multiple filling tubes. This segmented arrangement allows each chamber to be filled independently through its own tube while maintaining a simplified one-sided filling process, reducing manufacturing complexity compared to multi-sided filling requirements.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The design enables stable accommodation of all necessary nutrients in a ready-to-use format, reducing medication errors, contamination risks, and waste, while simplifying logistics and ensuring complete reconstitution without additional handling steps.
Implementation Method 1
peelable seals can be ruptured by applying pressure on the container chambers (rolling the container or pressing on one of the chambers)
Implementation Method 2
which still fulfills all requirements of a MCB. Specifically, the peelable sealing walls must be both stable enough so the walls do not break or start to leak during handling, including filling, sterilization, transport, and storage
Data Source
AI summary
A flexible multi-chamber bag for storing and reconstituting parenteral nutrition solutions is disclosed. The flexible multi-chamber bag comprises two first peelably sealing walls between the two polymer films and separating the first bag into a first chamber, a second chamber and a third chamber, wherein the first chamber is between the second chamber and the third chamber; and at least one of the two first peelably sealing walls split into a second plurality of second peelably sealing walls and the second plurality of the second sealing walls sealed to the bottom edge to form a fourth chamber.