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Osmosis Lab Report

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The approximate NaCl concentration that is isotonic with erythrocyte contents is 0.12M. Osmosis is a type of passive diffusion which involves the net movement of water across a semi-permeable membrane from an area of lower solute concentration to an area of higher solute concentration. Water travels across the membrane via two methods. The first method is through the phospholipid bilayer by diffusion and the second through aquaporins, proteins on the membrane which contain a hydrophilic core which enables them to function as water channels. When osmotic pressure on the both sides of the plasma membrane is the same, cell volume stays constant. When erythrocytes are placed in a hypotonic solution (a solution with lower concentration than the cell), water moves into the red blood cell, causing it to swell, to increase its volume and eventually burst ( haemolysis). When erythrocytes are …show more content…

Any solution in which a cell maintains it original shape and weight is said to be isotonic. If a cell is placed in an isotonic solution, there is no net movement of water across the plasma membrane but water still diffuses across at the same rate in both directions. In the case of this experiment, the concentrations of NaCl (0, 0.06, 0.08, 0.09 and 0.10) are all hypotonic solutions. During this investigation, water moved from an area of low solute concentration (solvents) to an area of high solute concentration within the cell. The cells swelled, performed haemolysis and haemoglobin, an oxygen carrying protein was

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