How does blood change colors?
1 Answer
Blood has two basic colors. Red when enriched with oxygen and blue when enriched with carbon dioxide.
Explanation:
Blood has two basic colors. Red when enriched with oxygen and blue when enriched with carbon dioxide.
The red color comes from the change in color of iron molecules found on hemoglobin.
The variations in the red hue of blood is affected by the amount of iron in the blood, the chemical composition of the blood including salts, proteins and platelets in the blood.
When I was young my dad smashed his thumb in a car door and ruptured a vein below the nail. The blood that was captured under the nail was bright blue in color. When we went to the doctor, the doctor took a paper clip and heated it up. He poked the nail with the hot paper clip to release the pressure of the blood under the nail. The blue blood immediately turned bed as a geyser of blood spouted upward from under the nail.
I will never forget the image of that color transformation. This is the same color change that takes place in the capillaries that surround the alveoli in the lungs as the exchange of Carbon dioxide and oxygen takes place.
