Osmosis in Living Tissue.

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Will Carroll                                                                01 May 2007

Osmosis in Living Tissue

Planning

        Osmosis is the movement of water from a high water concentration to one of low water concentration, through a selectively permeable membrane. The object of this is to even out the concentrations of the solutions, regardless of the volumes of the solutions.

Osmosis Diagrams:

        

Plasmolysis:

        

Movement of Molecules

The movement of molecules inside a solution of high water concentration is fast, and so they have more chance of getting through the semi-permeable membrane, and changing the concentration of the solution that has a low water concentration.

The things that change the rate that osmosis occurs are:

  • The Concentration
  • The Surface area
  • The Temperature

The concentration affects the rate of reaction because if one of the solutions is pure water, and the other is very concentrated with sucrose, the rate will be faster as there are more molecules to move past the semi- permeable membrane, so they will move faster.        

The surface area affects the rate of osmosis because it means that there will be more of the semi-permeable membrane for the molecules to collide with, and penetrate through.

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The temperature affects the rate of osmosis because it changes the kinetic energy that the particles have, by increasing it, so the particles move faster and have a higher chance of passing through the semi- permeable membrane.

The Purpose

The purpose of this investigation is to find out where the iso- osmotic point is for a 1 cm size of potato for different concentrations.

The iso- osmotic point is where the concentrations in the cells, and the concentrations of the solutions are the same. When this happens, osmosis has not stopped it still continues to take place, ...

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