Does the strength of salt solution have an effect on the mass of potatoes?

Predictions

I think that if the strength of the salt solution is weaker then the mass of potato will be heavier than a high solute concentration. This is because if the concentration if the concentration of the solution is lower there is more water present so the potato will be heavier because osmosis has taken place. Osmosis is when water molecules travel from an area of low concentration to a area of a high concentration. If the solution is in between the cytoplasm in the cells will be isotonic to the cells surroundings. If there is a lot less water in the solution I expect the mass of the potato to drop because the will be plasmolysed, also the cells will be soft and flaccid unlike a lower concentration in which the cells are rough and turgid

Conclusion

From my results I have found that if the solute concentration of the salt solution is lower, the more water can de taken on, leading to a positive change in mass. If the salt solution has a higher solute concentration then the change in mass will be negative. This is because the potato had lost water in the time. At around the 0.3 solute concentraion the change in mass will be extremely minimal as you can see from the graph. The potatoes mass increases when the solute concentration is lower. This is because osmosis has taken place as the water has moved from an area of low solute concentration to an area of high solute concentration. As the solute concentration gets higher the mass of the potato will be lost. Osmosis hasn't taken place here. Instead the water has been lost so the mass of the potato has been reduced.

I think that my results have shown that my prediction was accurate because I predicted that if the potato segments were covered in a solution of a high solute concentration then they would loose mass due to water escaping through the cells. Also I explained that if there was a lower solute concentration the potato would gain in mass because osmosis would take place.

Evaluation

Overall I think that this investigation was successful.

The method I used was accurate because if I would have left the potatoes for more than 5 hours then some of the cells in the potato weight have died and the tests wouldn't be fair. I think that the test was fair and each potato was weighed and measured to size extremely accurately and they were also all around the same mass at the beginning. Also they were all collected and analysed at the same time.

The results were accurate and reliable because the trend that they showed on the graph looked reliable and also the results were fair and reliable.

If I could make the investigation even more accurate then I would run the test through 2 or 3 more times to get more accurate results. I could also use several other strengths of solute concentration so I have more results. I could also use another piece of fruit or a vegetable and see whether the concentration of the salt solution had an affect on them