To see the effect Osmosis has on a potato chip after a certain time in different concentrations of water; these include: distilled water and 0.2M, 0.4M, 0.6M, 0.8M and 1.0M sucrose solutions.

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Investigation to see the effects of Osmosis – Matthew Voss

Aim

  To see the effect Osmosis has on a potato chip after a certain time in different concentrations of water; these include: distilled water and 0.2M, 0.4M, 0.6M, 0.8M and 1.0M sucrose solutions.

Prediction

  Osmosis is defined as the passing of water from a high concentration to a lower one through a semi-permeable layer, in an attempt to try and even out a water concentration. Here is an example of water passing across the concentration gradient:

  To prove the theory of Osmosis we are using chips of the vegetable potato. Plants naturally have semi-permeable skins to allow the passage of water and each plant cell has a vacuole, which is used to store water. Here is an example of a typical plant cell, such as in the potato:

  When soaked in the different solutions the potato will either absorb more water or let out water, thus growing or decreasing in mass.

  Due to starch and glucose and other assorted sugars in the plant, it is considered to have a low water concentration, which is why I predict the higher concentrations of water (distilled water, 0.2M solution) will pass through each of the potato’s permeable cell wall into the vacuole, causing the potato’s mass to grow. But with the lower water concentrations (0.4M, 0.6M, 0.8M and 1.0M sucrose solutions) the mass of the potato will shrink, as the water from the potato will pass from the cells into the surrounding solution.

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  Of course there is a limit to the growth of the potato, at a certain point the vacuole has grown to such a size that it is pressed against the cell wall, which is not letting it grow any further it becomes totally saturated and turgid. There is also a limit to the size the cells can shrink also.

  A similar preliminary experiment proves this prediction; here are the results from that experiment:

This table shows the growth of the potato in distilled water and it shrinking in the sugar solutions.

  Based on these preliminary results ...

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