Significance of volumes and capacities

Hyderabad: This article is in continuation to the previous article that focused on the human respiratory system. In this article, we will discuss the respiratory volumes and capacities:

Exchange of gases

• Alveoli are the primary sites of exchange of gases.
• Exchange of gases also occur between blood and tissues.
• O2 and CO2 are exchanged in these sites by simple diffusion mainly based on pressure/concentration gradient.
• Solubility of the gases as well as the thickness of the membranes involved in diffusion are also some important factors that can affect the rate of diffusion.
• Pressure contributed by an individual gas in a mixture of gases is called partial pressure and is represented as pO2 for oxygen and pCO2 for carbon dioxide.
• Partial pressures of these two gases in the atmospheric air and the two sites of diffusion are given in Table.

Respiratory Gas Atmospheric Air Alveoli Blood (Deoxygenated) Blood (Oxygenated) Tissues
O2 159 104 40 95 40
CO2 0.3 40 45 40 45
• The data given in the table clearly indicates a concentration gradient for oxygen from alveoli to blood and blood to tissues.
• Similarly,a gradient is present for CO2 in the opposite direction, i.e., from tissues to blood and blood to alveoli.
• As the solubility of CO2 is 20-25 times higher than that of O2, the amount of CO2 that can diffuse through the diffusion membrane per unit difference in partial pressure is much higher compared to that of O2.
• The diffusion membrane is made up of three major layersnamely,

 the thin squamous epithelium of alveoli,

 the endothelium of alveolar capillaries and

 the basement substance (composed of a thin basement membrane supporting the squamous epithelium and the basement membrane surrounding the single layer endothelial cells of capillaries) in between them.

• However, its total thickness is much less than a millimetre.

• Therefore, all the factors in our body are favourable for diffusion of O2 from alveoli to tissues and that of CO2 from tissues to alveoli.

To be continued …