Experiment Potato Osmosis Experiment

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Background information
Osmosis is a movement of water molecules or solvent through partially permeable membrane, down a concentration gradient without requiring energy from region of higher water potential (lower solute concentration) to region of lower water potential (higher solute concentration). Partially permeable membrane only allows certain substances such as water molecules, due to its small size, to pass through it.
Here are some factors that can affect the rate of osmosis include:
 Temperature – the lower the temperature, the water molecules will move slower across partially permeable membrane.
 Surface area – the smaller the size, the larger the surface area so that the osmosis process happens faster because more space for the …show more content…

Osmosis and diffusion are related because they involve moving of molecules from a region of higher concentration to lower concentration without requiring energy to reach equilibrium resulting in a stabilized solution. However, osmosis will only move water molecules while diffusion will move particles/substances.

Aim
The aim of this experiment is to investigate the effect of different sugar concentrations on the potato cells through osmosis process.
Research question
To what extent does the concentration of sugar solution can affect the mass of the potato cylinders through osmosis process?

Variables
Independent:
- The concentration of the sugar solution 0.00M, 0.25M, 0.50M, 0.75M, 1.00M

Dependent:
- The change in mass of the potato cylinders (final mass-initial mass).

Control:
-The size of the potato cylinders.
-The type of the potato cells used.
-Leave the potato cylinders for 10 minutes in the solution.
-The amount of distilled water used, 100cm3.
-The room …show more content…

The % changes in mass decrease because the final mass of the potato cylinders are lower than the initial mass. However, the % changes in mass are not gradually decreasing as there are no changes in mass for the potatoes cylinders in 0.00M, 0.25M, and 0.50M.

For the 0.00M means that it doesn’t contains any sugar so it only contain distilled water which means that it has higher water potential than in the potato cells. Therefore, the mass of the potato cylinders should be increased. However, in this experiment, it shows that there is no change in mass. I assumed that the mass might be increased a little bit but because of the electric balance can only weight to 1 decimal place so we cannot see the differences in the mass.

For 0.25M to 0.50M, I assume that the concentration between the solution and the potato cylinders are the same which make the solution an isotonic solution so that there will be no movement of water in and out the cell as the osmosis process does not

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