Exercise 5.10
Blood is an example of a colloidal mixture. (i) What would happen if blood behaved like a true suspension inside the body? (ii) In a blood sample, identify the dispersed phase and the dispersion medium.
Not cross-checked
NCERT prints no numerical answer for this exercise, so this working has not been cross-checked against the book.
(i) If blood behaved like a true suspension, its cells would settle out of the plasma instead of staying evenly dispersed.
Suspension particles are large and sink when left undisturbed, so the heavier red blood cells would sediment wherever the blood flowed slowly, and could clump and block the narrow vessels.
Blood could then no longer do its job of connecting the parts of the body by carrying nutrients, gases and hormones evenly to every tissue.
The cells would also be big enough to be seen with the naked eye and could be strained out by simple filtration, which is not what happens.
Being a colloid is what keeps the cells uniformly spread throughout the plasma while the blood circulates.
(ii) Dispersed phase = the blood cells — red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. Dispersion medium = the plasma, the liquid in which they are suspended.