vugj

Introduction: Osmosis is the diffusion of water from a higher concentration to a lower one through a semi-permeable membrane and occurs in the cells of organisms. It is affected by the addition of solute which would lower the water potential, making water potential and solute concentration inversely related. The concept of osmosis loosely described is that the presence of more solute outside the cell means the presence of less solvent (or water molecules in this case) and vice versa; the goal of osmosis is for the water molecules inside and outside of the cell to be equal, causing equilibrium and a stop to net water movement. The goal for a recent lab was to test whether cubes of potato would gain or lose weight depending on the amount of molar concentration of sucrose they soaked in. Solutions made of different molar concentrations of the solute sucrose were prepared before this lab. Potato cubes were weighed and recorded as the initial mass in the data. Four cubes of potato were placed into 100 mL of each solution and let stand overnight. The cubes were then taken out for the final total mass to be measured and recorded. In this experiment, the potato cubes were the dependent variables, and the molar concentrations were the independent or manipulated variables.

Hypothesis: If the solute inside the potato cell is significantly greater than that outside it, then water will enter the cell, causing it to gain weight. If the solute outside the potato cell is significantly greater than that inside it, then water will leave the cell, causing it to lose weight. If the amount of solute inside and outside of the cell is virtually equal, then there would be no net water movement causing the potato cell to remain the same weight.

Conclusion: My hypothesis was correct; the potato cubes placed in distilled water and 0.2 M sucrose solution gained weight, starting with 5.97 grams and 7.35 grams respectively and ending with _____g and _____g. The ones in 1 M and 0.8 M