Osmosis Flashcards
What is osmosis?
It is a type of diffusion.
Osmosis is the movement of water through a selectively permeable membrane. Water moves from an area of high concentration of water to an area of low concentration of water.
The membrane has tiny holes so only tiny molecules like water can pass through but larger ones like sucrose cannot.
Water molecules can pass both ways because they move randomly all the time. There is a steady net flow of water towards the region with fewer molecules.
So a sugar solution gets more dilute as the water tries to even up the concentration on either side of the membrane.
What experiment can you use to show osmosis?
Use potato tissue left in sugar solution and distilled water. Changes in mass and length can be accurately compared the next day.
The potato cylinder loses mass in distilled water
It loses more mass in a sugar solution
