What is plasma?

What is plasma?

Plasma is the fourth state of matter. Many places teach that there are three states of matter; solid, liquid and gas, but there are actually four. The fourth is plasma. To put it very simply, a plasma is an ionized gas, a gas into which sufficient energy is provided to free electrons from atoms or molecules and to allow both species, ions and electrons, to coexist. The funny thing about that is, that as far as we know, plasmas are the most common state of matter in the universe. They are even common here on earth. A plasma is a gas that has been energized to the point that some of the electrons break free from, but travel with, theirnucleus. Gases can become plasmas in several ways, but all include pumping the gas with energy. A spark in a gas will create a plasma. A hot gas passing through a big spark will turn the gas stream into a plasma that can be useful. Plasma torches like that are used in industry to cut metals. The biggest chunk of plasma you will see is that dear friend to all of us, the sun. The sun's enormous heat rips electrons off the hydrogen and helium molecules that make up the sun. Essentially, the sun, like most stars, is a great big ball of plasma.

http://education.jlab.org/qa/plasma_01.html

Plasma is the fluid part of blood and makes up most of the volume. It contains substances that can be used to treat different conditions.

Blood is made up of four elements, which each perform a different function:

• red blood cells – these carry oxygen around the body and remove carbon dioxide
• white blood cells – these help the body fight infection
• platelets – these tiny cell fragments trigger the process that causes the blood to clot (thicken)
• plasma – this yellow fluid transports blood cells and platelets around the body and contains a number of substances, including proteins

What is plasma?

Plasma is the largest component of blood, making up about 55% of its overall content. It is mainly made up of water and surrounds the blood cells, carrying them around the body.

Plasma also stores body fluids, helps maintain blood pressure and regulates body temperature. It contains a complex mix of substances used by the body to perform important functions. These substances include:

• minerals
• salts
• proteins
• hormones

Three important proteins are found in plasma:

• albumin
• clotting (coagulation) factors
• immunoglobulins

Uses of plasma products

The following plasma products can be used to treat a variety of different conditions.

Albumin

Albumin cleans the blood, carries substances around the body and helps to maintain the correct amount of fluid circulating in the body.

Human albumin solution can be used as a treatment to help people with severe burns, or with liver or kidney disease.

Clotting factors

Clotting (coagulation) substances, called factors, help to control bleeding and work together with blood platelets to ensure that the blood clots effectively.

Fresh frozen plasma and clotting factors can be used to treat blood clotting disorders such as haemophilia, an inherited condition in which the lack of a specific clotting factor can cause prolonged bleeding.

Immunoglobulins

Immunoglobulins are part of the immune system (the body’s natural defence against illness and infection).

Immunoglobulins are antibodies that the body produces to fight unwanted viruses and bacteria. For example, they are used to fight health conditions such as:

• tetanus – a serious but usually short-lived bacterial infection
• hepatitis – a viral infection that causes the liver to become inflamed (swollen)
• rabies – an infection of the central nervous system that is passed on to humans from infected animals

Normal human immunoglobulins can be used to support people who are having cancer treatment when their immune system is having difficulty producing antibodies.

Plasma is the source of anti-D immunoglobulin, a substance often given by injection to pregnant women with a rhesus negative blood group (RhD negative) and whose unborn baby may have a rhesus positive blood group (RhD positive).

This treatment prevents the mother becoming sensitised to the baby’s blood and stops immune anti-D developing. Immune anti-D can cause rhesus disease in subsequent pregnancies, which is a potentially fatal condition.

How are plasma products used?

Plasma products can be used in a number of different ways, depending on the condition they are being used to treat.

The main uses of plasma products include:

• fresh frozen plasma transfusion – plasma is separated from donated blood and frozen until needed, it is then thawed under controlled conditions and transfused to the recipient
• plasma exchange – a special machine is used to remove plasma from the blood, the plasma is then replaced with a substitute plasma product
• fractionation – removed plasma is treated to separate it into different proteins, these can then be used to treat certain conditions

Read more about how plasma products are used.

Risks of using plasma products

Some people can experience further problems after a plasma transfusion.

These can vary in severity from a slight temperature rise, to the development of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in very rare cases.

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Plasma-products/Pages/Definition.aspx

Plasma

Plasma is the liquid portion of blood – a protein-salt solution in which red and white blood cells and platelets are suspended. Plasma, which is 92 percent water, constitutes 55 percent of blood volume. Plasma contains albumin (the chief protein constituent), fibrinogen (responsible, in part, for the clotting of blood) and globulins (including antibodies). Plasma serves a variety of functions, from maintaining a satisfactory blood pressure and volume to supplying critical proteins for blood clotting and immunity. It also serves as the medium for exchange of vital minerals such as sodium and potassium and helps to maintain a proper pH (acid-base) balance in the body, which is critical to cell function. Plasma is obtained by separating the liquid portion of blood from the cells.

Plasma is frozen quickly after donation (up to 24 hours) to preserve clotting factors, stored up to one year, and thawed shortly before use. It is commonly transfused to trauma patients and patients with severe liver disease or multiple clotting factor deficiencies.

Plasma derivatives are concentrates of specific plasma proteins prepared from pools (many donor units) of plasma. Plasma derivatives are obtained through a process known as fractionation. The derivatives are treated with heat and/or solvent detergent to kill certain viruses like those that cause HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C.

Plasma derivatives include:

• Factor VIII Concentrate
• Factor IX Concentrate
• Anti-Inhibitor Coagulation Complex (AICC)
• Albumin
• Immune Globulins, including Rh Immune Globulin
• Anti-Thrombin III Concentrate
• Alpha 1-Proteinase Inhibitor Concentrate

http://www.redcrossblood.org/learn-about-blood/blood-components/plasma

Plasma

Plasma is the liquid portion of blood – a protein-salt solution in which red and white blood cells and platelets are suspended. Plasma, which is 92 percent water, constitutes 55 percent of blood volume. Plasma contains albumin (the chief protein constituent), fibrinogen (responsible, in part, for the clotting of blood) and globulins (including antibodies). Plasma serves a variety of functions, from maintaining a satisfactory blood pressure and volume to supplying critical proteins for blood clotting and immunity. It also serves as the medium for exchange of vital minerals such as sodium and potassium and helps to maintain a proper pH (acid-base) balance in the body, which is critical to cell function. Plasma is obtained by separating the liquid portion of blood from the cells.

Plasma is frozen quickly after donation (up to 24 hours) to preserve clotting factors, stored up to one year, and thawed shortly before use. It is commonly transfused to trauma patients and patients with severe liver disease or multiple clotting factor deficiencies.

Plasma derivatives are concentrates of specific plasma proteins prepared from pools (many donor units) of plasma. Plasma derivatives are obtained through a process known as fractionation. The derivatives are treated with heat and/or solvent detergent to kill certain viruses like those that cause HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C.

Plasma derivatives include:

• Factor VIII Concentrate
• Factor IX Concentrate
• Anti-Inhibitor Coagulation Complex (AICC)
• Albumin
• Immune Globulins, including Rh Immune Globulin
• Anti-Thrombin III Concentrate
• Alpha 1-Proteinase Inhibitor Concentrate

http://www.redcrossblood.org/learn-about-blood/blood-components/plasma

WHAT IS PLASMA?

WHAT IS PLASMA?

Plasma is often called the "Fourth State of Matter," the other three being solid, liquid and gas. A plasma is a distinct state of matter containing a significant number of electrically charged particles, a number sufficient to affect its electrical properties and behavior. In addition to being important in many aspects of our daily lives, plasmas are estimated to constitute more than 99 percent of the visible universe.

In an ordinary gas each atom contains an equal number of positive and negative charges; the positive charges in the nucleus are surrounded by an equal number of negatively charged electrons, and each atom is electrically "neutral." A gas becomes a plasma when the addition of heat or other energy causes a significant number of atoms to release some or all of their electrons. The remaining parts of those atoms are left with a positive charge, and the detached negative electrons are free to move about. Those atoms and the resulting electrically charged gas are said to be "ionized." When enough atoms are ionized to significantly affect the electrical characteristics of the gas, it is a plasma.

In many cases interactions between the charged particles and the neutral particles are important in determining the behavior and usefulness of the plasma. The type of atoms in a plasma, the ratio of ionized to neutral particles and the particle energies all result in a broad spectrum of plasma types, characteristics and behaviors. These unique behaviors cause plasmas to be useful in a large and growing number of applications important to our lives and to the world around us.

Origin of the Term "Plasma" for Ionized Gases

Many wonder how the term "plasma" became applied to an ionized gas. Irving Langmuir, a researcher working to understand electric discharges, was the first to use the term in this way. The following explanatory excerpt is from: G. L. Rogoff, Guest Editorial, Special Issue on Applications of Partially Ionized Plasmas, G. L. Rogoff, Ed., IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, vol. 19, p. 989, Dec. 1991. (See helpful definitions below.)

During the 1920's Irving Langmuir was studying various types of mercury-vapor discharges, and he noticed similarities in their structure - near the boundaries as well as in the main body of the discharge. While the region immediately adjacent to a wall or electrode was already called a "sheath," there was no name for the quasi-neutral stuff filling most of the discharge space. He decided to call it "plasma."
While his relating the term to blood plasma has been acknowledged by colleagues who worked with him at the General Electric Research Laboratory, [1], [2], the basis for that connection is unclear. One version [2] of the story has it that the similarity was in carrying particles, while another account [3] speculated that it was in the Greek origin of the term, meaning "to mold," since the glowing discharge usually molded itself to the shape of its container. In any case, it appears that the first published use of the term was in Langmuir's "Oscillations in Ionized Gases," published in 1928 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [4].
Thus the term "plasma" was first used to describe partially (if not weakly) ionized gases. The term plasma apparently did not find immediate widespread use in the scientific community. It did eventually catch on, however, but in some cases the term was inappropriately limited to highly ionized gases.

http://www.plasmacoalition.org/what.htm

Contemporary Physics Education Project

Copyright1994 General Atomics

Plasma is by far the most common form of matter. Plasma in the stars and in the tenuous space between them makes up over 99% of the visible universe and perhaps most of that which is not visible. On earth we live upon an island of "ordinary" matter. The different states of matter generally found on earth are solid, liquid, and gas. We have learned to work, play, and rest using these familiar states of matter. Sir William Crookes, an English physicist, identified a fourth state of matter, now called plasma, in 1879.

Plasma temperatures and densities range from relatively cool and tenuous (like aurora) to very hot and dense (like the central core of a star). Ordinary solids, liquids, and gases are both electrically neutral and too cool or dense to be in a plasma state. The word "PLASMA" was first applied to ionized gas by Dr. Irving Langmuir, an American chemist and physicist, in 1929.

Plasma consists of a collection of free moving electrons and ions - atoms that have lost electrons. Energy is needed to strip electrons from atoms to make plasma. The energy can be of various origins: thermal, electrical, or light (ultraviolet light or intense visible light from a laser). With insufficient sustaining power, plasmas recombine into neutral gas.Plasma can be accelerated and steered by electric and magnetic fields, which allows it to be controlled and applied. Plasma research is yielding a greater understanding of the universe. It also provides many practical uses: new manufacturing techniques, consumer products, the prospect of abundant energy, more efficient lighting, surface cleaning, waste removal, and many more application topics. http://www.plasmas.org/what-are-plasmas.htm

What Is Plasma?

Plasma is the often forgotten component of blood. White blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets are essential to body function, but plasma also plays a crucial, and mostly unrecognized, job, carrying these blood components throughout the body as the fluid in which they travel.

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Facts about plasma

Plasma is the largest component of your blood, making up about 55 percent of its overall content. When isolated on its own, blood plasma is a light yellow liquid, similar to the color of straw. Along with water, plasma carries salts and enzymes.

The primary purpose of plasma is to transport nutrients, hormones, and proteins to the parts of the body that need it. Cells also deposit their waste products into the plasma, and the plasma in turn helps remove this waste from the body. Blood plasma also ushers the movement of all the elements of blood through the circulatory system.

Plasma's importance to your health

Plasma is a critical component in the treatment of many serious health problems. This is why there are frequent blood drives encouraging people to donate blood plasma.

Along with water, salt, and enzymes, human plasma also contains important components, such as immunoglobulins (antibodies), clotting factors, and the proteins albumin and fibrinogen. When you donate blood, health professionals can isolate these vital ingredients from your plasma and concentrate them into various products. These products are then used as treatments that can potentially help save the lives of people suffering from burns, shock, trauma, and other medical emergencies.

The proteins and antibodies in plasma are also used to create therapies for rare chronic conditions, such as autoimmune disorders and hemophilia. With access to these treatments, people with these conditions can live long and productive lives. In fact, some health organizations call plasma "the gift of life."

Donating plasma

If you want to donate plasma to help others in need, you will go through a screening process beforehand to make sure your blood is healthy and safe. If you qualify as a plasma donor, you'll spend about an hour and a half at a clinic on every subsequent visit.

During the actual blood donation process, your blood is drawn through a needle placed in a vein in one arm. Then a special machine separates the plasma (and often the platelets) from your blood sample. This process is called plasmapheresis. The remaining red blood cells and other blood components are then returned to your body, along with a little saline (salt) solution.

People with the blood type AB are in the greatest demand for plasma donation. Though they make up just 4 percent of the population, their plasma is universal, which means it can be used by anyone.

http://www.urmc.rochester.edu/Encyclopedia/Content.aspx?ContentTypeID=160&ContentID=37