Use of Zirconia Ceramic in the DexAide Right Ventricular Assist Device Journal Bearing Diyar Saeed, David J. Horvath, Alex L. Massiello, Yoshio Ootaki, Stephen Benefit, Leonard A.R. Golding, and Kiyotaka Fukamachi Department of Biomedical Engineering, Lerner Research Institute, The Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA Abstract: Our aim was to evaluate the potential use of zirconium oxide (zirconia) as a blood journal bearing mate- rial in the DexAide right ventricular assist device. The DexAide titanium stator was replaced by a zirconia stator in several blood pump builds, without changing the remain- ing pump hardware components. In vitro pump perfor- mance and efficiency were evaluated at a predetermined pump speed and flow. Motor power consumption decreased by 20%, and DexAide battery life was extended to over 12 h on two fully charged batteries. The zirconia stator was also successfully evaluated in a severe start/stop test pre- and postexposure of the zirconia to accelerated simulated biologic aging. This study’s outcomes indicated the advantages of zirconia as an alternate journal bearing material for the DexAide device. Key Words: Biocom- patible materials—Nonpulsatile flow—Surface properties —Ceramic materials—Zirconium. The DexAide right ventricular assist device (RVAD) is a third-generation continuous-flow blood pump developed for use in right ventricular failure. The design has been adapted from the CorAide LVD-4000 Assist System (Arrow International, Reading, PA, USA), developed at the Cleveland Clinic. The detailed design features of the DexAide RVAD have been published previously (1).The 280 g DexAide pump consists of three subassemblies: the volute housing, rotating assembly, and stator assem- bly (Fig. 1). The mated bearing surface materials on the stator’s outer diameter and the rotating assem- doi:10.1111/j.1525-1594.2009.00757.x Received January 2008; revised May 2008. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Kiyotaka Fukamachi, Department of Biomedical Engineering/ND20, The Cleveland Clinic, 9500 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA. E-mail: fukamak@ccf.org FIG. 1. DexAide pump subassemblies (top to bottom): volute housing, rotating assembly, and stator housing. Zirconia stator (lower left) and titanium stator (lower right). THOUGHTS AND PROGRESS 146 Artif Organs,Vol. 34, No. 2, 2010