What Would Your Results Be If The Potato Were Placed In A Dry Area?

Key Concepts Biology Osmosis Cells Chemistry Concentration Water transport Introduction Have you ever wondered how plants “drink” water from the soil? Water uptake in plants is quite complicated. A process called osmosis helps the water move from the soil into the plant roots—and then into the plant’s cells. In this activity you will see for yourself how you can make water move with osmosis! Background Most water in the ground is not pure water. It usually contains dissolved mineral salts. Animals and plants need these salts (which include calcium, magnesium, potassium and the sodium you might be familiar with as table salt) to grow, develop and stay healthy. Different water sources carry different amounts of these salts. Nature wants to balance a system that is not balanced. So if you mix water with two different salt concentrations, the salts don’t stay separated but spread out evenly through the solution until the salt concentration is the same throughout. You’ll find a similar reaction if you separate two salt solutions with a semipermeable membrane. A semipermeable membrane is a type of barrier that only lets certain particles pass through while blocking others. This type of membrane usually lets water pass through but not the salts that are dissolved in the water. In this situation, because only water can move through this membrane, the water will start moving from the area of lower salt concentration (which has more water and less salt) to the area of higher salt concentration (which has less water and more salt). This water movement will only stop once the salt and water concentration on both sides of the membrane is the same. The process of moving water across a semipermeable membrane is called osmosis. Plants use this process to their advantage for water uptake. They create an environment of high salt concentration in their root cells that are in contact with the soil. The cell walls act as a semipermeable membrane that only let water through. Because the water outside the root cells has a lower salt concentration, water starts moving into the root cells due to osmosis.

Will water move in or out of the cell if the cell has a higher water potential?

Water will move out of a plant cell if it has a higher water potential (concentration) than the surrounding environment.

What happens when you soak a slice of raw potatoes fingers in water and salt water?

Reading Time: 2 minutes Ever cut up some apples or potato slices just to see them turn funky colors and not be as fresh as they could be? What can you do to protect these fruits and vegetables and keep this from happening? What will keep potatoes (or other veggies) fresher: soaking it in regular water or saltwater? This month, I’m going to explain this question by explaining the concept of osmosis.

Osmosis is a property of matter that deals with diffusion; a spreading out of particles from high concentration to low concentration. Basically, more stuff balances out with less stuff. Like spraying a bunch of perfume in one place, notice how it travels across the room? However, instead of stuff in the air, osmosis describes the motion of water going through something.

I’m going to give you the experiment, and then we’ll talk about how exactly this water motion occurs. Materials: A potato, salt, water (if you have distilled water, that kind is best), a couple of drinking glasses. Procedure:

Fill two glasses with water In one of the glasses add 2-3 tablespoons of salt, and stir it in Slice up a potato into French fry-like pieces Make your observations on these pieces: pay attention to color, how flexible it is, smell, etc. Take a guess about how you think these slices might change by putting them into the different types of water Dunk the pieces in the water, and then let them sit overnight in it Remove the pieces onto a plate and make your final observations

Explanation: You will notice some immediate differences in the potato slices. The color of the salted water one is dark brown; not a nice image of how you would like your potatoes preserved! The one in the regular water looks like a nice white freshly cut piece of potato.

Moving on to the flexible test, the regular water one again feels firm and crisp (try to break the piece, it snaps!). The saltwater potato is bendy and doesn’t snap at all. Osmosis is the key to understanding this issue. Osmosis is the diffusion of water across a semi-permeable membrane (yikes!) from an area of high concentration of water, to an area of low concentration.

Semi-permeable membrane : a layer that only certain things can go through. For example, parts of the potato that water can pass through. Salt is the key here. Water will move from an area of less salt to more salt (more water to less water), and so when the potato is placed in the saltwater, all the water that is inside the potato (yes, plants have a lot of water inside of them, that’s what gives a plant it’s structure) moves out by osmosis.

What will happen to potato in plain water?

Hint:- Osmosis simply put, is a phenomenon in which molecules of a solvent move from a less concentrated solution to a more concentrated one, until and unless the concentrations equalize on both sides of a semi or partially permeable membrane. It needs just no energy, so this process is a passive one.

Complete step-by-step solution:- If seen relevant to the question, basically there are 3 forms or types of solutions : 1. Hypotonic Solution, 2. Isotonic Solution, 3. Hypertonic Solution, If we place a substance inside any hypertonic solution, it loses water. Thus creating a room between the cell’s membrane and the cell’s wall; and as a result, that cell turns flaccid (soft or floppy) or undergoes plasmolysis.

This is called Exosmosis. Amidst this, the cell loses track of its turgidity. While, if we place a substance inside any hypotonic solution, the molecules of the solvent move towards the cell, thus making the cell turgid or or making it undergo deplasmolysis.

This is called Endosmosis. Potatoes contain both starch and water. So, when potato slices are placed in strong salt solutions they shrink, i.e the water inside the slices diffuses from the areas of lower concentrations to the areas of higher concentrations. Whereas, the slices placed in plain water slightly swell up and become crisp.

As mentioned above, when a cell is placed in a hypotonic solution, the plant cell intakes water. And when the cell is fully inflated with water, it becomes turgid. Note:- – Water always moves into the higher concentration areas from the lower concentration areas.

What factors affect osmosis in potatoes?

There are various factors that affect osmosis such as: concentration, surface area and temperature. The concentration of solutions can affect the rate of osmosis, as there is more difference in the concentration of the solutions, which means osmosis, will take place quicker.

How does surface area affect osmosis in a potato?

The relationship between an object’s surface area and the rate that substances diffuse into (or out) of it has implications in many areas. For example, some organisms may rely on diffusion to obtain nutrients and get rid of waste. The effect that the surface area of an object has on the rate of diffusion can be investigated using a potato and a digital scale (accurate to 0.01 g).

Peel the potato, and cut it into 2 cubes, each about 2 cm on a side Cut one cube into 8 smaller pieces of the same size Wet the 2 cm cube under tap water, then pat it dry with a paper towel and weigh it Wet the 8 smaller cubes, pat them dry and weigh them together Place the cubes into a jug of water and start a timer for 15 minutes After 15 minutes, remove the cubes, dry them with a paper towel, and weigh the large cube, and the 8 smaller cubes Try to be consistent in the way you dry the cubes, as this will affect their weight Repeat step 6 three more times, then graph the results Repeat the experiment if you want – I cut 2 large cubes and 16 small cubes so I could run a duplicate simultaneously

My results are shown in the graph below: As the potato cells contain lots of solutes in their water, the water in the beaker will move into the potato cells via osmosis, causing them to become heavier. Thus the increase in mass corresponds to the rate of osmosis. Both the whole cubes had approximately the same rate of increase in mass – about 5%/hr.

What happens when a potato is placed in a hypotonic solution?

Answer and Explanation: A hypotonic solution is one that has a concentration of solute that is lower than the amount of solute inside of the potato’s cells. This causes water to move into the cells in attempt to reach osmotic equilibrium. The cells will swell with the excess water, causing the potato cube to swell.

Is a potato hypertonic or hypotonic?

Conclusion – As is can be seen from Table 6, there is generally a decrease in mass when a potato is placed in water containing NaCl (aq) solution. The potato sap has little solutes, and therefore it is hypotonic while the salt solution has more solutes.

1. Therefore, it is hypertonic.
2. Water molecules moved from a region of low concentration to a region of high concentration.
3. The purpose of using five potato tissues is for the accuracy of the results obtained.
4. The percentage change in mass calculated increased the increase in salt concentration.
5. At 30 min, all of them showed a decrease in mass.

This is due tote fact that a lot of water is drawn from potato tissue to the salt solution. As the time increases, the cell is continually losing water; there is no general trend as in others it increases from 30 minutes to 60 minutes while in others it decreases.

Near to the end of the experiment, the cell increased slightly in mass, though it is still lower than the initial value. This is because the solution is isotonic, that is, all solution s have attained the same concentration, and there is no net movement of water molecules from one solution to another.

Though there is no specific theoretical value about the mass of potato used, the general conclusion is of a decrease in mass as the cells are losing water by osmosis (Odom et al, 2017). Evaluation Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

What happens to potato cells in a hypertonic solution?

Osmosis can be seen very effectively when potato slices are added to a high concentration of salt solution (hypertonic). The water from inside the potato moves out of the potato cells to the salt solution, which causes the potato cells to lose turgor pressure.

Does hypotonic shrink or swell?

Cells swell in hypotonic solutions and shrinks in hypertonic solutions.