Home▸Medical Technology & Imaging Physics▸Acid-Base Balance: The Bicarbonate Buffer System in Blood

🩸 Acid-Base Balance: The Bicarbonate Buffer System in Blood

Explore how the bicarbonate buffer system, lungs, and kidneys keep blood pH locked within the narrow 7.35-7.45 range, and what happens when respiratory or metabolic acid-base disorders push it off course.

Medical Technology & Imaging Physics3DModerate60 FPS

The simulation shows a dynamic model of blood buffering in which you can raise or lower carbon dioxide and bicarbonate levels and watch pH shift in real time according to the Henderson-Hasselbalch relationship, alongside visual cues for the four major acid-base disorders.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

🎮 How to Use

Use the sliders to adjust PaCO2 and plasma bicarbonate independently, or select a preset scenario such as hyperventilation or diabetic ketoacidosis, and observe how the resulting pH, compensation response, and disorder classification update instantly.

💡 Did You Know?

A person at rest produces roughly 15,000 to 20,000 millimoles of carbon dioxide per day from cellular respiration alone, all of which must be buffered and exhaled continuously just to keep blood pH within its narrow 7.35 to 7.45 range.

⚙ Under the hood

physiologybiochemistryacid-base balancebicarbonate bufferrespiratory systemrenal physiologyblood phmedicine

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install