The Effect of Diffusion and Osmosis on Solutions

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The Effect of Diffusion and Osmosis on Hypertonic and Hypotonic Solutions. Introduction: In order to maintain homeostasis, a cell must be able to transport materials back and forth across the membrane due to the fact that cell membranes are selectively permeable. Selectively permeable means that some substances can pass through the membrane while others cannot, like glucose, proteins and carbohydrates. Both solutes and solvents may cross the cell membrane. Solutes meaning: the substance that is being dissolved, while solvents meaning: substance being dissolved into, much like diffusion. Diffusion can be defined as particles that move from a higher concentration to areas of lower concentration. Diffusion is one of the key processes involved in the movement of materials into and out of cells throughout living systems. Osmosis is the diffusion of the water through a selectively permeable membrane from an area where it is more concentrated to an area where it is less concentrated. Different solutions can be categorized as hypotonic, hypertonic and isotonic as different concentrations. A hypotonic solution has a higher concentration of water and lower solute concentration than a reference solution, while a hypertonic solution contains a lower concentration of water and a higher concentration of solute. Isotonic is a solution when equal concentrations of solute and water exist on either side of the cell membrane whereas, hypertonic and hypotonic solutions are unequal concentrations of molecules on either side of a permeable membrane. Hypothesis: The five solutions that will be placed in the dialysis tubing are hypertonic concentrated solutions, thus, that will cause the model cell in the dialysis tubing to diffuse out of the tubing and the surrounding environment hypotonic solution will diffuse in. Materials: Part 1. The Rate of Diffusion and Cell Size

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