Asuratyr
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Hi,
I was studying soft matter physics when a question arose between a friend and me. Namely if red blood cells can be considered to be a colloid. Colloids as it was presented to us had 3 criteria: high diffusion so the particles wouldn't form a sediment, a small reynolds number and a surface size much bigger than the solvent.
On first sight, RBC's seemed to fit these criteria, but they still separate from the plasma in 1-2 days. This is slow, but does this mean they can not be considered colloids or does this mean they are simply unstable colloids?
A following question was whether stacks of red blood cells or so called "rouleaux" could be considered colloids (as well). Here, our intuition said no, but besides a higher reynolds number and presumed faster sedimentation we didn't find good arguments.
Can anyone shed a bit of light on the situation?
I was studying soft matter physics when a question arose between a friend and me. Namely if red blood cells can be considered to be a colloid. Colloids as it was presented to us had 3 criteria: high diffusion so the particles wouldn't form a sediment, a small reynolds number and a surface size much bigger than the solvent.
On first sight, RBC's seemed to fit these criteria, but they still separate from the plasma in 1-2 days. This is slow, but does this mean they can not be considered colloids or does this mean they are simply unstable colloids?
A following question was whether stacks of red blood cells or so called "rouleaux" could be considered colloids (as well). Here, our intuition said no, but besides a higher reynolds number and presumed faster sedimentation we didn't find good arguments.
Can anyone shed a bit of light on the situation?