Dialysis Membrane Lab Report

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In experiment 1, the exchange of substances, through passive transport, was observed. In this experiment, a dialysis membrane was used to simulate a cell membrane, however, the dialysis membrane is not alive. In addition, the dialysis membrane is semipermeable meaning that, depending on size, only certain substances will be able to go through. During the experiment, the membrane was half filled with glucose and, the other half, filled with starch solution. The membrane was placed into a beaker with iodine solution. The hypertonic concentration of iodine on the outside of the membrane leads to diffusion, which, if they are small enough, will move the molecules towards the hypotonic area (inside membrane). As diffusion moved the iodine from the beaker into the membrane, the white color of the starch and glucose solution inside the membrane turned blue/purple. That happened because, as iodine comes in contact with starch, it reacts and turns blue/purple, proving that iodine was small enough to go through the semipermeable membrane. On the inside of the membrane, there was a …show more content…

After that, the plant was placed on a slide and, instead of dropping a drop of water, a drop of the 10% salt solution was dropped on the plant. When placed under the microscope, it was observed that the chloroplasts were tightly packed in the middle of the cells. The 10% salt solution was hypertonic, while the cell was hypotonic, because of that, salt moved, through diffusion, to the inside of the cell, so that equilibrium could be reached. Also, the water from the cell, through osmosis, went from the hypotonic cell to the hypertonic solution. As the water leaves the cell, the volume decreases, and the cell shrinks. However, the rigidness of the cell wall, does not allow it to shrink, so, what happens is that the inside of the cell shrinks while the cell wall maintains itself

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