To determine the water potential of potato tuber cells. Osmosis is defined as the movement of water molecules from a region of higher water potential to a region of lower water potential through a partially permeable membrane. Osmosis is considered in terms of water potential and solute potential. Water potential is a measure of the kinetic energy of water molecules. Here, water molecules are constantly moving in a random fashion. Some of them collides with cell membrane, cell wall, creating a pressure on it known as water potential.
The higher heir kinetic energy the more they move and hits the membrane, therefore higher the water potential. Water potential also depends on the number of molecules of water present. Solute restricts the movement of water, so a strong sugar solution with lots of solute particles will lower the kinetic energy and hence water potential. In osmosis water moves down a water potential gradient until the equilibrium is reached between two regions. The amount of solute molecule that lowers the water potential in a solution is called solute potential.
The highest water potential is found in pure water, where no solutes restricts the movement of water. The water potential of pure water is given a value of O colossally. Adding solutes lowers the water potential to a negative value. The more solute particles added, the lower the water potential becomes which means that the more negative value. For example, Pure water = O Spa (highest water potential) Dilute sugar solution = -kappa Concentrated sugar solution = -kappa (lower water potential) Therefore, the nearer the value to O Spa, the higher the water potential.
Potato tubers are made of plant cells. Plant cells always have a strong cell wall surrounding them. They also contain partially permeable cell membrane. They boot have different way of being permeable to the molecules of water and other substances. Membranes are composed of phosphoric belayed with proteins scattered amongst them. In watery solution the phosphoric molecules naturally forms a belayed, two layers of phosphoric with phosphates on the outside and fatty acids pointing inwards.
Membranes allow selective things to pass through the belayed but prevent other things passing through. Cell membrane allows small molecules such as oxygen, carbon dioxide to pass through easily. Water enters the membrane by osmosis avoiding the hydrophobic centre. Plants have strong cell wall made up of cellulose. When they take up water by osmosis they start to swell, but this cell wall prevents them from bursting as the living part of cell inside the cell wall starts to push against the cell wall.
This inelastic cellulose support makes it possible for the plant cell to be turgid whereas in animal cell if water enters the cell by osmosis, the cell burst as volume increases and pressure builds up against cell membrane, which is unable to cope with the pressure. Plant cell wall is made up of cellulose and has an arrangement of fibers around it. It as a very high tensile strength which makes the cell to withstand the large pressures that develop within it as a result of osmosis. It makes the cell wall very rigid and the arrangement of the fibers around the cell helps it to determine the shape of the cell as it grows.
Cellulose fibers are freely permeable, allowing water and solutes to reach the plasma membrane. Therefore cell wall is permeable to water. Cell surface membrane is partially permeable as it is made of phosphoric belayed. The outside of the layer is attracted to water and the centre of the membrane is lipid allowing specific substances to pass through. This partially permeable membrane allows the free passage of some particles but is not freely permeable to others. Biological membrane are freely permeable to water. Sucrose and starch molecules are large therefore they are not freely permeable to membranes.
They are transported across membranes by special process called facilitated diffusion. Solutions with a lower solute concentration are described as hypotonic solution and solution with higher solute concentration is described as hypersonic solution. If the solution surrounding a cell has the same solute concentration as the cell then water ill pass equally between them. When a solution has the same solute concentration as the cell then it is described as isotonic. Starch is insoluble in water because it is formed when many macroeconomics condense together to form long chains.
As it is long chain polymers and complex carbohydrates, the bonds which hold them together are hard to be broken down by water. Therefore starch is insoluble in water. Sucrose is soluble in water because it is a disaccharide sugar. These sugars are formed when two hexes sugar molecules react together by condensation reaction. When water is added in this sugar, it is Rosen down into hexes sugar (small unit), as bonds holding the disaccharide sugar are spitted up by water. Preliminary Work I did an experiment using sweet potato and sucrose solution. I measured the change in length and the change in mass of the sweet potato.
Both mass change and length change gave me a graph but mass change graph was more reliable than length change. The length of the potato cylinder changes because water enters the cell by osmosis down the concentration gradient and therefore volume of cell is increased. As the concentration of solution is increased, the percentage change in length decreases as solute potential in the solution is increased. To obtain value for solute potential of the sweet potato I have relied on the results of mass change against the concentration as the readings obtained forms a pattern on the graph.
The graph produced for length change is a bit odd. This is because it is hard for a cell to push against the cell wall on all sides and increase the length due to the fact that the cell wall is made up of strong cellulose molecule which has high tensile strength, therefore it is hard for a water to push against this support. The effect of this push caused by osmosis is little than the actual push without cellulose in cell wall. Therefore the results obtained for this will not be accurate enough. Hence, I have decided to rely on the mass change of the potato cell.
It is better to use change in mass because we get reliable readings about the water being entered and increased its mass. Sweet potato has high concentration of solute molecules. Sweet potato cell has sucrose which is soluble in water whereas normal potato has starch which is insoluble in water. Prediction When the potato is left in pure water it will gain mass. I base this prediction on the knowledge that I have about osmosis. Osmosis is term given for the movement of eater when it moves from higher water potential to lower water potential.
In pure water, there is no solute molecule therefore the concentration of water is higher then the potato which have high concentration of solutes than that of water. Therefore there is net movement of water from the region where they are in high concentration (that is in pure water) to region were there is low water potential present (in potato) by osmosis. Hence water enters the potato cell. Therefore there will be increase in the mass of the potato as water enters down the water potential gradient. In pure eater the potato tuber swells because water enters their cells by osmosis.
When the potato is left in a high concentration of sucrose, it will lose its mass. This is because there is large number of solutes molecules present in the solution. Here, the water potential is lower than that of potato cell which has high water potential and low solute concentration. Therefore water will leave the potato cell to reach equilibrium with the sucrose solution. Hence, as water leaves the mass of the potato lowers. In rich sugar solution the potato tubers shrink because water leaves the potato by osmosis. At a certain sucrose concentration, there will be no change in mass.
The volume of sucrose solution in which potato tubers are immersed must be same. This is because to enable the experiment to be fair and have same effect of volume on the potato. Measurements The mass of potato is variable and will be measured throughout the experiment. The potato chip will be measured before it is put in solution and after. This will show us the difference in mass and whether or not osmosis has taken place and how much osmosis has occurred. The mass be recorded in grams. The sucrose concentration which I am using is 1. MM and to make dilutions, I am going to mix water to this concentration.
I have decided to take 2 sets of results from my classmates, as one set of result may not be accurate because of human error. Variable The only factor I am varying is the concentration of sucrose solution Risk Assessment Although the experiment is fairly safe, we have to be aware of some points. While using razor blades, we have to take extreme care and precision as it is very sharp and could easily cause serious injury. Therefore care should be taken. We have to make sure the space and surface where the experiment is going to be carried out should be dry and tidy as watery surrounding may affect the results .
Any breakage should be reported to teachers straight away as we are handling with glass equipment which are dangerous to handle if broken. Evaluation I HTH k that the experiment went very well, there were no big odd results and they produce a good graph. While I was working on the experiment, all necessary precaution were taken into consideration. I think the procedure used is appropriate enough to make overall conclusion of the investigation. But few problems were faced while doing the experiment. Referring to the graph, I can see that as the concentration of sucrose solution is increased from 0.
M to 0. 6 M the percentage change in the mass of the potato is decreasing. Here I mean that the potato is gaining mass. The trend is that it is a negative correlation and there is a high Jump at every two points e. G between 0. MM $0. MM. I think I have obtained a bit odd value between the concentration of 0. MM and 0. MM. Between these points there is no high Jump with compared to the trend. This could be due to rate of osmosis at these concentration but to notice it is a short Jump with compared to long ones. Some odd results are seen when I am comparing my results with compared to average value.
E odd results are underlined in the average table above. The average value of mass change obtained for MM concentration is 4. 99% but the value obtained from me is far more greater than this I. E. 7. 58%. ‘ think this difference is due to the following reasons: As the averages were found from two sets of result from classmates, I cannot be sure about their reliability. Maybe they have done some inaccuracies in the experiment which would have led us to different values. Or maybe I was inaccurate in my measurements. I think the following are reasons which would have affected the results obtained by me.
In the experiment, the concentration of the solution was prepared by the group of students. Therefore I cannot be so reliable on them for making dilutions. Maybe this might have caused some inaccurate results. To be more reliable, I would do dilutions myself if the experiment is to do again as this is a limitation in the procedure as all students have done the experiment in same way. I cannot be sure about the reliability of the mass of potato when they were dried on the filter paper. Here maybe I have dried them more or maybe I have dried them less. If I have dried them more then there will be slight decrease in mass than the actual ass.
If I have dried them less then there will be molecules of solution on them increasing the mass of potato. This was limiting strategy in the experiment as all student have faced same problem as I have. To improve I will be more careful and patient to dry the potato tuber and if possible I will probably find a nice paper which takes up water on anything precisely without drying the substance. I think I was not precise enough to record the mass of potato tuber. This is because while weighing the potato taken from solutions , I remember that the value on the
