Osmosis Lab Report

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The experiment is aimed at giving a better understatement of osmosis process and the different conditions in which osmosis occurs.

INTRODUCTION

When a cell membrane is said to be selectively permeable, it means that the cell membrane controls what substances pass in and out through the membrane. This characteristic of cell membranes plays a great role in passive transport. Passive transport is the movement of substances across the cell membrane without any input of energy by the cell. The energy for passive transport comes entirely from kinetic energy that the molecules have. The simplest type of passive transport is diffusion, which is the movement of molecules from an area of high concentration to an area of lower concentration. Diffusion
The direction of osmosis depends on the relative concentration of the solutes on the two sides. In osmosis, water can travel in three different ways. If the molecules outside the cell are lower than the concentration in the cytosol, the solution is said to be hypotonic to the cytosol, in this process, water diffuses into the cell until equilibrium is established. If the molecules outside the cell are higher than the concentration in the cytosol, the solution is said to be hypertonic to the cytosol, in this process, water diffuses out of the cell until equilibrium exists. If the molecules outside and inside the cell are equal, the solution is said to be isotonic to the cytosol, in this process, water diffuses into and out of the cell at equal rates, causing no net movement of water. In osmosis the cell is selectively permeable, meaning that it only allows certain substances to be transferred into and out of the cell. In osmosis, the proteins only on the surface are called peripheral proteins, which form carbohydrate chains whose purpose is used like antennae for communication. Embedded in the peripheral proteins are integral
The egg appeared shriveled after removing it from the sucrose because of the movement of water out of the egg. The sucrose solution was hypertonic so water moved out of the egg from an area where water was more concentrated to the outside of the egg where water was less concentrated due to the high amount of sugar or solute. The acetic acid in vinegar did remove the shell from the egg, because the egg required two days to completely remove the shell, some water did move into the egg causing its initial mass without the shell to be higher than the egg's mass with its shell. Whenever the egg was transferred from the sucrose to the distilled water, the concentration of water outside the shriveled egg was greater than the water concentration inside the egg; therefore, water moved into the egg until equilibrium was reached. At that point, movement into and out of the egg continued with no net movement of water

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