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Diffusion & Osmosis

Experiment: 1. Conduct any activity to demonstrate osmosis.​

Diffusion & osmosis quiz.

Simple Candy Osmosis Experiment

Demonstrate Osmosis Using Gummy Bears

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Osmosis is the diffusion of water across a semipermeable membrane. The water moves from an area of higher to lower solvent concentration (an area of lower to higher solute concentration). It's an important passive transport process in living organisms, with applications to chemistry and other sciences. You don't need fancy lab equipment to observe osmosis. You can experiment with the phenomenon using gummy bears and water. Here's what you do:

Osmosis Experiment Materials

Basically, all you need for this chemistry project are colored candies and water:

• Gummy bear candies (or other gummy candy)
• Plate or shallow bowl

The gelatin of the gummy candies acts as a semipermeable membrane . Water can enter the candy, but it's much harder for sugar and coloring to leave exit it.

What You Do

It's easy! Simply place one or more of the candies in the dish and pour in some water. Over time, water will enter the candies, swelling them. Compare the size and "squishiness" of these candies with how they looked before. Notice the colors of the gummy bears starts to appear lighter. This is because the pigment molecules (solute molecules) are being diluted by the water (solvent molecules) as the process progresses.

What do you think would happen if you used a different solvent, such as milk or honey, that already contains some solute molecules? Make a prediction, then try it and see.

How do you think osmosis in a gelatin dessert compares with osmosis in candy? Again, make a prediction and then test it!

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Cell Metabolism & Osmosis

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Osmosis Experiment: Dissolving Egg Shells With Vinegar

How does osmosis keep you healthy.

Right now, as you read this, there are millions of things happening throughout your body. The food you ate just a bit ago is making its way through a watery slurry inside your stomach and small intestines. Your kidneys are working hard to excrete waste and extra water. The lacrimal glands near your eyes are secreting tears, which allow your eyelids to close without damaging your eyeballs. What’s one thing that all of these processes have in common? They all rely on osmosis: the diffusion of water from one place to another.

Osmosis factors heavily in each of these processes and is an important force for keeping every single cell in your body healthy. Osmosis is hard to see without a microscope. But if we create our very own model of a cell, using a shell-less chicken egg, we can see what happens when we manipulate the osmotic balance in the “cell”!

• 3 glasses (large enough to fit the egg plus liquid)
• 3 butter knives
• White vinegar (about 3 cups)
• Distilled water (about 2 cups)
• Light corn syrup (about 1 ¼ cups)
• Slotted spoon
• Measuring cup (1 cup)
• Measuring spoons (1 tablespoon and ½ tablespoon)
• Sticky notes and marker
• Scale (optional)

Note : It’s okay to touch the eggs, but remember to wash your hands afterwards to avoid any nasty surprises!

1. Place one egg in each glass. Pour in enough vinegar to cover each egg. Bubbles will start to form around the egg, and it’ll float up. To keep it submerged, put a butter knife in the glass to hold it down.

2. Put the three glasses in the refrigerator and allow to sit for 24 hours.

3. Gently holding the egg in the glass, pour out the old vinegar. Replace with fresh vinegar, and let sit in the refrigerator for another 24 hours. Repeat this process until the shells are fully dissolved and only the membrane remains. This should take about 2-3 days.

4. Gently remove the eggs using the slotted spoon and rinse with tap water in the sink. Rinse out the empty glasses as well.

5. Gently put the shell-less eggs aside for a moment on a plate.

6. Prepare three different sugar-water solutions as follows, labeling with sticky notes:

Glass 1: Label “hypertonic”. Pour in one cup of corn syrup.

Glass 2: Label “isotonic”. Add 1 ½ tablespoons corn syrup to the one cup measuring cup, and fill the remainder with distilled water. Pour into glass (make sure you get all the corn syrup out!) and stir to dissolve.

Glass 3: Label “hypotonic”. Pour in one cup of distilled water. Gently put one shell-less egg in each of the glasses, and let sit in the refrigerator for another 24 hours.

7. Remove the glasses from the refrigerator, and gently put the eggs on a plate. If you weighed the eggs before putting them in each solution, weigh them again. What happened to each of the eggs?

How does osmosis work?

Osmosis is the scientific term that describes how water flows to different places depending on certain conditions. In this case, water moves around to different areas based on a concentration gradient , i.e. solutions which have different concentrations of dissolved particles ( solutes ) in them. Water always flows to the area with the most dissolved solutes, so that in the end both solutions have an equal concentration of solutes. Think about if you added a drop of food dye to a cup of water – even if you didn’t stir it, it would eventually dissolve on its own into the water.

In biological systems, the different solutions are usually separated by a semipermeable membrane , like cell membranes or kidney tubules . These act sort of like a net that keeps solutes trapped, but they still allow water to pass through freely. In this way, cells can keep all of their “guts” contained but still exchange water.

Now, think about the inside of an egg. There’s a lot of water inside of the egg, but a lot of other things (i.e. solutes) too, like protein and fat. When you placed the egg in the three solutions, how do you think the concentration of solutes differed between the inside of the egg and outside of the egg? The egg membrane acts as a semipermeable membrane and keeps all of the dissolved solutes separated but allows the water to pass through.

How did osmosis make the eggs change size (or not)?

If the steps above work out properly, the results should be as follows.

In the case of the hypertonic solution, there were more solutes in the corn syrup than there were in the egg. So, water flowed out of the egg and into the corn syrup, and as a result the egg shriveled up.

In the case of the isotonic solution, there was roughly an equal amount of solutes in the corn syrup/water solution than there was in the egg, so there was no net movement in or out of the egg. It stayed the same size.

In the case of the hypotonic solution, there were more solutes in the egg than in the pure water. So, water flowed into the egg, and as a result, it grew in size.

Osmosis and You

Every cell in your body needs the right amount of water inside of it to keep its shape, produce energy, get rid of wastes, and other functions that keep you healthy.

This is why medicines that are injected into patients need to be carefully designed so that the solution has the same concentration of solutes as their cells (i.e. isotonic). If you were sick and became dehydrated, for example, you would get a 0.90% saline IV drip. If it were too far off from this mark it wouldn’t be isotonic anymore, and your blood cells might shrivel up or even explode , depending on the concentration of dissolved solutes in the water.

Osmosis works just the same way in your cells as it does in our egg “cell” model. Thankfully, though, the semipermeable membrane of the egg is much stronger, so you don’t have to worry about the egg exploding as well!

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Lindsay graduated with a master’s degree in wildlife biology and conservation from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She also spent her time in Alaska racing sled dogs, and studying caribou and how well they are able to digest nutrients from their foods. Now, she enjoys sampling fine craft beers in Fort Collins, Colorado, knitting, and helping to inspire people to learn more about wildlife, nature, and science in general.

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Homepage > Syllabus > Unit 2 > Diffusion and Osmosis

Diffusion and Osmosis

Diffusion is the movement of molecules from an area of high concentration to an area of lower concentration.

Gases diffuse in and out of cells

Osmosis is the movement of water from an area of high concentration to an area of lower concentration across a semi-permeable membrane.

Osmosis is a special form of diffusion.

Semi-permeable (or selectively permeable) membranes are cell membranes that act as a barrier. Many molecules cannot pass across them, but some molecules can. Therefore they control what leaves and enters the cell.

Animal cells and osmosis.

• Animal cells have a cell membrane that separates the contents of the cell from its external environment.
• If this cell is immersed in pure water, water will flow into the cell.
• If this flow of water continues the cell will be unable to withstand the pressure and the cell will eventually burst.
• If the cell is immersed in a solution that is highly concentrated, water will flow out of the cell.
• If this continued the cell will eventually shrivel up.

• Amoeba is an organism that lives in fresh water.
• However unlike normal animal cells it has devised a way to prevent itself from bursting.
• It has a special structure called a contractile vacuole.
• As the water enters the cell, water is diverted into this vacuole.
• When the vacuole is full the water is pushed out of the cell.

Plant cells and osmosis.

• Plant cells have a cell wall surrounding their cell membrane.
• The cell wall is fully permeable.
• If a plant cell is immersed in pure water, the water will flow in by osmosis.
• The cell vacuole will expand and push the cytoplasm against the cell wall.
• The cell does not burst because of the cell wall.
• Such a cell is said to be turgid.
• Turgor pressure is the force of the cell contents against the cell wall in plant cells.
• If a plant cell is placed in a solution that is highly concentrated, it will lose water to its surroundings.
• As it loses water, the cell shrivels up and the cell membrane moves away from the cell wall.
• This leaves a gap between the cell wall and cytoplasm. This process is called plasmolysis.

Active transport.

• Active transport is the process where chemicals are taken into a cell against the diffusion gradient (i.e. from an area of low concentration to an area of high concentration)
• This process requires energy.
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Experiments on Osmosis (With Diagram)

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The below mentioned article includes a list of four simple experiments on osmosis.

1. Experiment to demonstrate the osmosis by using sheet of cellophane or goat bladder:

Requirements:

Beaker, thistle funnel, goat bladder or sheet of cellophane, thread, water and sugar solution.

1. Cover the lower opening of the glass tube with the goat bladder or sheet of cellophane and tie it with the thread.

2. Fill in the interior of the tube with molasses, a concentrated sugar solution in water.

3. Place the whole apparatus in a beaker containing water, preferably distilled water.

4. Note the level of the water in the thistle funnel and keep the apparatus to note the results.

Observations:

Level of the water in the thistle funnel increases (Fig.2).

1. Movement of water through the goat bladder or cellophane sheet into the thistle funnel takes place.

2. Water concentration in beaker is 100% while in the sugar solution it is less than this, and, therefore, the water from the region of higher concentration moves towards the region of lower concentration. The movement is through a semipermeable membrane and so the experiment shows the phenomenon of osmosis.

3. The force, with which the solution level in the tube increases, arises from the pressure exerted by the diffusion of water molecules into the tube. This pressure is called osmotic pressure.

4. Stability of the water level in the funnel indicates that water concentration in both the beakers as well as funnel is same and thus osmosis stops.

2. Experiment to demonstrate osmosis with the help of potato osmometer:

Petri-dish, water, potato, sugar solution, cork and capillary tube.

1. Take a potato tuber, remove its outer covering from one end and cut the same end flat.

2. Scoop out a cavity from the other end of the tuber running almost upto the bottom.

3. Fill the cavity with the sugar solution and fit an airtight cork fitted with a capillary tube on the upper end of the cavity (fig. 3).

4. Place the capillary- fitted potato tuber in the water- filled petri-dish.

5. Mark the solution level in the tube and watch the experiment for some time.

After some time the level of the solution in the tube increases. Mark the level of solution when it stops to move.

The level in the capillary tube increases because of the fact that osmotic pressure of the sugar solution is higher than that of the water, and the water moves through the semipermeable membrane of potato from petri-dish into the cavity. So the experiment shows that phenomenon of osmosis.

3. Experiment to demonstrate the osmosis by the egg osmometer:

Egg membrane, dilute HCI, water through, graduated tube, sugar solution and stand.

1. Prepare an egg membrane by carefully removing waterproof shell of egg with the help of dissolving it away in dilute HCI.

2. Remove all the fat and protein-containing yellow material of the egg by making a hole on its one end.

3. Fill the sugar solution in the egg membrane through the hole and fit a graduated tube in the hole.

4. Place the complete apparatus in a water-filled trough (Fig. 4).

5. Note the level of sugar solution in the graduated tube and keep the apparatus undisturbed for some time.

Level of the sugar solution increases in the tube.

The level in the tube increases because of the fact that osmotic pressure of the sugar solution in the egg membrane is higher than that of water, and so the water from the trough passes through the egg membrane into the sugar solution thus increasing its level. Egg membrane is a semipermeable membrane.

4. Experiment to demonstrate the phenomenon of exosmosis and endosmosis:

Potato tubers (2), knife, conc. sugar solution, water, pin, beakers (2).

1. Remove the outer skin of the tubers and cut their one end flat with a sharp knife.

2. Scoop out a cavity from the other end of the tuber running almost upto the bottom as in experiment No. 14.

3. Fill the concentrated solution of sugar in the cavity of one tuber, and water in the other.

4. Mark the level of the sugar solution and water in the cavities with the help of pins.

5. Place the potato containing sugar solution in a beaker containing water, and the another potato containing water in its cavity in the beaker containing sugar solution (Fig. 5).

6. Keep and observe experiment for some time.

The level in the cavity containing sugar solution increases while the level decreases in the another tuber, i.e., in the cavity filled with water.

The level of the sugar solution in the first tuber increases because of the fact that water moves from the beaker into the cavity through the semipermeable membrane of potato. Thus it shows the phenomenon of endosmosis.

The level of the water in the second tuber decreases because of the fact that water moves from the cavity into the beaker through the semipermeable membrane of potato tuber. Thus it shows the phenomenon of exosmosis.

Related Articles:

• Experiment on Osmosis in Potatoes | Botany
• Top 6 Experiments on Osmosis (With Diagram)

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