Excellent thinking as always Eric.
A few points:
1) CO2 is not just dissolved in blood but is also bonded to the Haemoglobin. It bonds to the outside of each of the four protein molecules in the Haemoglobin. This means that the blood store of CO2 is greater than just the plasm and cytoplasm content. I don't think this impacts your thinking much, but it means the difference between blood and body CO2 carrying capacity is not quite as big as first thought.
2) I disagree that you should be able to get the acid blood/alkaline body scenario. I agree with the other 3. With the 10 mins of deep breathing, you would of course get rid of lots of CO2, but in your mini-CO2 table, the CO2 would build up in the 'bodywater' just as much as it would in the blood. Then you would breathe off some blood CO2, gain a bit of O2 and do your breathold. This means you would end up with slightly alkaline blood and 'bodywater'.
Anyway - great stuff as always. I am sure you are on to something here. In some ways it is looking full circle - i.e. we are back to the 'breathe deeply' prep that was the done thing 10 years ago. I will defintely be thinking of how to apply this thought to my diving. I may even do a dreaded static or two......
Ben
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