Facilitated carbon dioxide transport in bovine albumin solutions.

Steady-state CO2 diffusion in the presence of a CO2 gradient was measured in thin layers of bovine albumin solutions containing different amounts of buffer base, added as NaHCO3, and/or of NaCl. In the same solutions, electrical potentials due to the CO2 diffusion across the layers were measured. Addition of carbonic anhydrase induced a chemical reaction equilibrium to exist for the CO2 reaction system, and led to equilibrium values for facilitated CO2 transport due to a bicarbonate flux and to maximum values for the diffusion potential. The diffusion potentials are generated due to the large differences in the ionic mobilities of albumin and other ionic species such as bicarbonate. The diffusion potential markedly reduces the facilitated CO2 flux. The presence of sodium chloride had no significant effect on the CO2 transport rate. The total mass transfer rates of CO2 in albumin solutions were considerably lower than those found by Stroeve and Ziegler (23) in hemoglobin solutions at identical concentrations of buffer base.