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Topic: Defining osmosis?  (Read 1634 times)

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Offline Ilikecats12344

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Defining osmosis?
« on: December 16, 2015, 01:38:18 PM »
I handed in a piece of work regarding osmosis, a note I got back from my tutor was that " you must explain osmosis as a function of water equilibrium". What does this mean? Isn't osmosis just the movement from a higher concentration to a lower concentration of solute? How do I adapt what my tutor said? How does water equilibrium come into this? I know that isotonic solutions will have reached equilibrium because the movement of water or what ever it may be is diffusing equally in and out of the cell. Help please? :S

Offline Corribus

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Re: Defining osmosis?
« Reply #1 on: December 16, 2015, 01:51:27 PM »
Osmosis is the movement of solvent (e.g., water) from a region of low concentration to a region of high concentration across a membrane until the concentrations are equal. Since the change is spontaneous, it tells you that the initial condition is not at equilibrium, and the final condition is. I guess the tutor wants you to explain what the nature of the equilibrium is.
What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were like a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?  - Richard P. Feynman

Offline Ilikecats12344

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Re: Defining osmosis?
« Reply #2 on: December 16, 2015, 01:59:37 PM »
I see. I will define water equilibrium but when I research it, it comes up with things totally unrelated to osmosis :S I guess I will just have to also ask him tomorrow. Thanks for the help

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