Red blood cells can be dried out and stored at room temperature for two years using a process involving high-pressure carbon dioxide.
Donor blood usually expires in about six weeks and must be kept constantly refrigerated to stay viable. This new framework uses supercritical CO2 to remove the water from red blood cells while keeping their structure intact. The resulting powder is 13 times smaller than liquid blood and can be stored on a shelf for up to 730 days. When needed, the blood can be rehydrated and used for life-saving transfusions without the need for a cold chain. This could revolutionize emergency medicine in remote areas or battlefields where refrigeration is impossible to maintain.
Ambient-Temperature Red Blood Cell Preservation via Supercritical CO2 Desiccation with Food-Grade Bacteriostatic Agents and Perfluorocarbon Oxygen Supplement: A Conceptual Framework for
ChemRxiv · 10.26434/chemrxiv.15002860/v1
Red blood cell (RBC) transfusion in resource-limited and geographically remote settings is critically constrained by cold-chain dependency (1–6°C), short shelf life (42 days), and high total cost of ownership under tropical ambient conditions. No existing approved product combines ambient-temperature stability, volume reduction, bacteriostatic protection, and augmented oxygen delivery in a single dried RBC preparation. Here we describe a conceptual multi-component preservation system comprising: