Blood plasma
This article may be too technical for most readers to understand . Please help improve it to make it understandable to non-experts, without removing the technical details. ( May 2017 ) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) A unit of donated fresh plasma Blood plasma is a yellowish liquid component of blood that normally holds the blood cells in whole blood in suspension. In other words, it is the liquid part of the blood that carries cells and proteins throughout the body. It makes up about 55% of the body's total blood volume. [1] It is the intravascular fluid part of extracellular fluid (all body fluid outside cells). It is mostly water (up to 95% by volume), and contains dissolved proteins (6–8%) (e.g. serum albumins, globulins, and fibrinogen), [2] glucose, clotting factors, electrolytes (Na + , Ca 2+ , Mg 2+ , HCO 3 − , Cl − , etc.), hormones, carbon dioxide (plasma being the main medium for excretory product transportation) and oxygen. It plays...