Dialysis Lab Essay

393 Words2 Pages
Dialysis Lab Background: Dialysis works on the principles of the diffusion of solutes and ultrafiltration of fluid across a semi-permeable membrane. Diffusion is a property of substances in water; substances in water tend to move from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration. Blood flows by one side of a semi-permeable membrane, and a dialysate, or special dialysis fluid, flows by the opposite side. A semipermeable membrane is a thin layer of material that contains holes of various sizes, or pores. Smaller solutes and fluid pass through the membrane, but the membrane blocks the passage of larger substances (for example, red blood cells, large proteins). This replicates the filtering process that takes place in the kidneys, when the blood enters the kidneys and the larger substances are separated from the smaller ones in the glomerulus. a process by which molecules of a solvent tend to pass through a semipermeable membrane from a less concentrated solution into a more concentrated one, thus equalizing the concentrations on each side of the membrane. In this lab, one will observe the properties of diffusion and osmosis and model the data one receives on a standard curve. With knowledge of water potentials, one can chart the gains and losses of water to find the molarity of a specific solution. fluids flows to areas of lower water potential, so this information can be used to find out how concentrated the solution of testing is. Methods: To measure the concentrations and water potentials of the solutions in question one fills dialysis tubes with 10 ml of different concentrations of fluid and submerges them into a bath filled with the solution in question. After submerging the tubes into the solution, one will wait approximately 30 minutes for the tube to reach equilibrium. With 10 ml of solution initially filling the tubes, one would track
Open Document