Why does alcohol cause the hemolysis of RBC in a large proportion?

Question

I had today an experiment that we put 95% alcohol to the blood which made it completely transparent so hemolysis must have occurred.I started to think about the reasons.I think that this is because alcohol dissolved the lipid membrane of cells outside of the cell. Alcohol molecule is also very small.I think that I can go through the bilayer too.So I started to think that the other possible reason was that alcohol went inside the cell so caused - dissolution of the membrane from the inner side - increase in the volume of the cell so bursting**What are the main reasons why Alcohol cause hemolysis to the red blood cell?**

Answer 1

There is significant research into this phenomenon. At this high concentration, alcohols have been demonstrated to disrupt the cell membrane of the red blood cell. When the membrane is disrupted, the contents of the cell are flushed out.

However, I wouldn't use the word "dissolve" to describe this process. From how I understand, alcohol molecules are able to situate themselves within the cell membrane. When enough molecules have done this, the cell membrane's contents begin to leak out.