Osmosis Lab Report

Introduction

For starters, what do we know about osmosis and what it does? Osmosis is the process of water diffusing across a semi-permeable membrane from that of a higher water concentration to a lower water concentration (Garcia, M; Orr, R, et. al., 2014). An excellent example when it comes to osmosis is in dealing with our small intestines and how it will absorb as well as secrete water to insure normal body functions (Bowen, 2010).

Materials and Methods

The first step taken within the experiment was to obtain and label three 400 mL beakers with the numbers 1 through 3 using a wax pencil. Once labeled, each beaker needed to be filled with a corresponding solution. The beaker marked with a “1” was filled with 200 mL of distilled water and

For the first dialysis tube, which contained the 10 mL of 10% sucrose, it was hypothesized that water will move from the outside of the dialysis tube to the inside due to the distilled water in the beaker being of a higher concentration than within the dialysis tube. Once the experiment was completed it was shown that the weight of the dialysis tube had gone up almost a full mL. Based upon this information it can then be determined that the solution within the dialysis tube was hypotonic and the distilled water in the beaker can be seen as hypertonic.

With the second dialysis tube, which contained 10 mL of distilled water, it was hypothesized that the water would move from the inside of the dialysis tube to the outside due to the water concentration in the beaker being lower than that of the water concentration within the dialysis tube. Once the experiment was completed it was shown that the weight of the dialysis tube had gone down a little over a full mL. Given this difference in amount of a difference it can be suggested that the solution within the dialysis tube was hypertonic while the solution in the beaker was