Osmosis Controlled Assessment

The effect of osmosis in potato chips

Hypothesis

For this experiment I am going to test the weather the or shrinkage of potato chips via osmosis by immersing them in different concentrations, or molarities, of solutions of sucrose. Osmosis is defined as the net movement of water molecules through a selectively permeable membrane from a relatively dilute solution to a relatively concentrated solution.

We are going to investigate effect that osmosis has on the size and weight of potato chips. We know that there will be an effect because we know that the cells of potato chips have a selectively permeable membrane suitable for osmosis.

My hypothesis is that, due to osmosis, the potato chips will shrink in a high concentration due the movement of water molecules from the relatively low concentration of the potato chips the relatively high concentration of the sucrose solution, meaning that the potato chips will shrink. If the sucrose solution is of a low molar, the opposite will happen. The water molecules of the relatively dilute concentration will move into the relatively concentrated solution of sucrose inside the potato chips. This means that the potato chips will grow in size and weight. However, when the concentration of the sucrose solution matches the concentration of sucrose inside the potato chips, there will be no net movement of water molecules. This means that the water molecules have reached equilibrium, meaning that the size and weight will remain the same. I predict that the sucrose solution and the solution inside the potato chips will establish equilibrium between 0.4 and 0.6 molar.

Controlling factors

We will also be testing two factors: time and temperature. Time may have an effect due to the fact that the selectively permeable membrane cannot allow all of the water molecules through instantly, because the holes in the membrane are so small. So, if anything, time may cause the change in size and weight of the potato chips to be more...