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Osmosis And Diffusion Lab Report

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Introduction
Water is known as the universal solvent. A solvent has the ability to dissolve another substance, which is known as the solute. The solute and solvent together are known as a solution.
Osmosis and diffusion are passive transport mechanisms, meaning that no energy has to be added into the system in order for transport to occur, which the cell uses in its selectively permeable membrane. Osmosis involves the transportation, or movement, of water from an area of low solute concentration to an area of higher solute concentration. Diffusion is the movement of solute particles from areas of high solute concentrations to areas of lower concentrations of solutes. Therefore, both osmosis and diffusion work on a concentration …show more content…

Therefore, the rate of diffusion is inversely proportional to the molecular weight.
Dialysis membrane is used to demonstrate the semi-permeable membrane of the cells. The flow of water within cells is driven by osmosis. Osmosis is dependent on the portion of the membrane, whether dialysis membrane or the membrane of the cell, which is in contact with the fluid that needs to be transported (Devuyst and Goffin, 2008). Dialysis membrane has microscopic pores which allow the passage of very small molecules like water, but large molecules cannot pass through. The concentration gradient helps to determine how much water or how many solute particles will pass through the membrane and in what direction they will flow.
Biological membranes must be semi-permeable to allow the passage of substances in and out of the cell. The semi-permeability allows the passage of substances such as proteins, nutrients, and more to be regulated. Only substances of a particular size can go into the cell and only these certain small substances will be allowed to exit the cell.
The dialysis membrane’s permeability was tested with four substances. Starch, sulfate ion, chloride ion, and albumin are all substances of different sizes. Albumin is a protein that is fairly large so it cannot diffuse through a semi-permeable membrane. Ions such as the sulfate and chloride ion are small enough that they can go through the microscopic pores of the dialysis tubing.

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