Potato Osmosis Lab

I think that the potatoes with no change will be in an isotonic solution, the potatoes in a hypertonic solution will shrink, and the

My prediction is that as the concentration increases, the potato cell will lose more weight. This is because of the osmosis of water particles from the potato cell cytoplasm to the solution, resulting in a loss of weight. As the concentration decreases, the potato will lose less weight until a certain point where the osmosis of particles in and out of the potato cells will be equal. I also predict that as the salt

As the molarity of the sucrose solution increased, the mass of the potato still increased, but at a decreasing rate, until the potato was submerged in the 0.4 M solution, in which its mass did not change at all. Then, as the molarity was increased further, the change in the mass of the potato started decreasing at an increasing rate. This tells us that in the 0 M and 0.2 M solution, the water potential of the potato was less than that of the sucrose solution because water entered the potato. In the 0.4 M solution, or at about 0.32 as the best fit line would predict, the potato cells were at equilibrium with the solution since the mass did not change. In the 0.6 M, 0.8 M, and 1 M solutions, the potato’s mass decreased, so it must have had a lesser water potential than the

What would your results be if the potato were placed in a dry area for several days before your experiment? The potato would contain less water, and therefore be very hypertonic, water would diffuse in more quickly, and from solutions that would have been hypertonic before it was placed in a dry environment. 7) When potatoes are in the ground, do they swell with water when it rains? If not, how do you explain that, and if so, what would be the advantage or disadvantage? No, because pure rain water would be hypotonic to the potato, because it does not contain any solutes.

The main purpose of the experiment was to test the idea that water would move from the higher concentration to the lower concentration. In order to test this theory, we placed potato slices in 7 different containers, each containing different concentrations of NaCl, to measure the weight change from osmosis. The containers ranged from 0M NaCl all the way to .6M NaCl. We measured the potato slices before and after placing the slices in the solutions and recorded the net change in weight to determine the tonicity of the potato cells. Our results showed that the potato slices put in a NaCl solution of .2M or higher lost weight and the potato slices put in a NaCl solution of .1M or lower gained weight. This shows that the osmolarity of the potato falls within the range of .1M to .2M, and it also proves the process of Osmosis by having the higher concentration move to the lower concentration. In addition to this, it can be concluded that the osmolarity of cells can be determined by observing the affects of osmosis.

The potatoes were placed into the saucers for 45 minutes and observed. Then, the potatoes were placed into the opposite saucer for another 45 minutes and observed.

The graph drawn from the preliminary results show that at a concentration of 0.4M the percentage change in mass is 0%. Using graph 2 I can determine the water potential at this concentration. The water potential is -1150kPa but this is not the water potential of all the cells as each cell in the potato piece will have different water potential and the water potential may vary greatly. Below are the results of a group of 11 results for the concentration at which there is 0% change in mass from the experiment:

8. Use the plastic forceps to remove the potato cylinders from the beakers (keep them together in the same group), and blot off the excess solution weight on them with the paper towels.

The solution had a higher concentration of water molecules than the potato itself. This causes the water to move from the 0.0 M solution into the potato cells through osmosis. The water movement causes the mass to increase as well as make the potato to appear firmer. The cells enlarge and become more filled with water, which causes them to potato to appear firmer. However, it is also seen in the weight gain of the potato in the results section.

Osmosis is a special type of diffusion. It is the diffusion of water across a semipermeable membrane which is a membrane that is freely permeable to water but is not freely permeable to solutes, the water moves from a dilute solution to a more concentrated solution (Karp, 2010). Both diffusion and osmosis are passive transport, energy is not used in the transport. In osmosis water moves across a membrane toward the solution of greater concentration, because the concentration of water is lower there (Martini and Bartholomew., 2007).

As we can see in Figure’s 1.2 and 1.3, when there was no sucrose solution, the potato increased in weight. This is due to the fact that the sucrose solution was hypertonic in comparison to the potato slice. Through osmosis, the solution moved along the concentration gradient and into the potato slice making it hypotonic. When there were higher concentrations of sucrose solution, the potato decreased in weight. This is due to the fact that the potato was hypertonic in comparison to the potato. Through osmosis, sucrose from the potato moved along the concentration gradient out and into

In this lab we are going to discovery how osmosis works using a semi-impermeable membrane a potato slice. Osmosis is known as the movement of water in and out of a cell. To understand how this works we must understand two terms. Hypotonic means the environment has less solutes compared to the inside of the cell. Hypertonic means that the environment has more solutes compared to the inside of the cell. With osmosis water will always move from hypotonic too hypertonic. So the question is will water move into the potato or out of the potato? Will these results change when placed in different morality of salt water? To calculate these results, we will measure the mass of potatoes cut into equal sizes then soak these potato slices in different morality of NaCl for thirty minutes and measure the mass change in each potato slice.

The potato cells, took in, or gave out the water depending on the concentration of the solution it is surrounded in. The results were fine and by looking at the mass measured before the experiment, you can see that there is no reading which seems to be out of the line. As the weights before the experiment range between 2.31g and 2.46g, this tells us that the potato pieces were cut well, and I believe accurate enough. The results show that: - Osmosis actually took place in the experiment.

Either the solution is hypotonic which means that the solution has a lower concentration than the potato core and this would cause water to flow into the potato and make it larger and therefore increase its mass. The state the cell is in is called turgid.

Lastly, type of tissue was controlled by using only one type of tissue which is the same potato.