Osmosis Lab Report

The purpose of the experiment was to find the rate of osmosis when the bags, which had water or different percentages of sucrose, were placed in either water or sucrose. The hypothesis of the experiment was that the bags with the different percentages of sucrose put into a beaker of water would have the water flowing into them, the bag with water that was put into a beaker of sucrose solution would have the water flowing out of it, and the bag with water that was put into a beaker of water would have an equal flowing of water. The hypothesis was correct for all three of its components. The rate of osmosis is different between hypotonic, hypertonic, and isotonic solutions because of the water that is either moving into the bag or moving out …show more content…
Isotonic means the solutions contain equal concentrations of impermeable solutes. Hypotonic means a solution has lesser solute concentration than the cytosol, for example we are hypotonic with respect to saltwater. The bags of sucrose solutions were hypotonic compared to the water, which is the reason that the water entered the bag and the bag gained weight. The bag of water was hypertonic compared to the sucrose solution, which is why the water exited the bag and the bag lost weight. The bag of water was isotonic compared to the water, which is why there was not much of a change in the weight since the water was moving in and out of the bag at an equal rate. Osmosis affects both plant cells and animal cells. Plant cells are enclosed by a cell wall, so when they are placed in hypotonic solutions the cells expand but do not burst because of the cell wall. This is known as the cell becoming turgid, which helps maintain the stability of the plant tissue. When a plant cell is placed in a hypertonic solution, the cytoplasm shrinks and moves away from the cell wall, and this is known as