Why do red blood cells burst when put into pure water?

Answer 1

water moves into the blood cell as it's water concentration is less than the surrounding environment. due to the amount of water absorbed by the cell, it had t burst because of the pressure on the cell membrane.

Answer 2

Red Blood Cells Bursting

Answer 3

When red blood cells are put into pure water, a thing called Osmosis begins to occur. Osmosis works in that water will move from an area of higher water concentration, to an area of lower water concentration.
So, knowing that our red blood cells contain a water/salt combination, if put into PURE water, water will move from outside of the red blood cell INTO the red blood cell.
To get scientific, you could say that the red blood cell is hypotonic. This simply means that water will move into it (diffuse, which is a fancy word for move in through the membrane) from the outside. This will occur until the concentrations are equal on the outside and on the inside. Since there is not enough space within the red blood cell for this to happen, the pressure eventually gets so extreme that the walls rupture and the cell dies.

Hope the longer explanation helps.

Answer 4

CORRECTION: in response to Tzad, the red blood cell (RBC) would be HYPERTONIC (NOT hypotonic).

-tonic refers to the solute, and hyper- means "above". So hypertonic refers to having more solute.
--Red blood cells have about a 295 mOsm (milliosmolar)
--Pure water has no solute so 0 mOsm

Water flows from high to low concentration. This can be confusing so pay attention to this part:

Solute (i.e. particles dissolved in the solvent, in this case the intracellular fluid of the RBC).

More solute = less water (because the particles displace the water).

So, water flows toward higher concentration, or in this case, as Tzad said above correctly, INTO the red blood cell through osmosis.

The cell would swell and potentially burst (causing cell death).

Answer 5

The person above me really covered it.. but this is why people shouldnt drink only distilled water, it can have a similar affect on the blood cells in your body.

Answer 6

it has to do with the amount of salt in the blood and the need to equalize the pressure inside and outside the cells.

Answer 7

whilst a pink blood cellular is placed into water, water will circulate around the membrane INTO the cellular. it is because of the fact the cellular includes a extra robust concentration of solutes than our environment, so water will enter to stability out the concentration.