Final answer:
Red blood cells absorb water via osmosis when placed in distilled water, which is a hypotonic solution. This can lead to hemolysis, where cells swell and eventually burst due to the lack of mechanisms in red blood cells to prevent excessive water intake.
Step-by-step explanation:
Placing a red blood cell into a fluid with no solutes, such as distilled water, would result in the cell absorbing water via osmosis. Osmosis is the movement of water across a semipermeable membrane from an area of lower solute concentration to an area of higher solute concentration. Red blood cells in a hypotonic solution, like distilled water, will experience an influx of water due to the higher concentration of solutes within the cell compared to the surrounding fluid.
Hemolysis is a process that occurs when red blood cells are placed in such an environment, where they swell up with water and eventually burst because their membrane can only stretch to a certain limit. This occurs because red blood cells lack the controls that most cells have to prevent them from taking on too much water, which makes them excellent subjects for osmolarity studies. In contrast to hypotonic environments, in hypertonic solutions, water leaves the red blood cell, and the cell shrinks or crenates.