In part one, the varied amounts of surface area and volume had an effect on the diffusion rates of the trials. The greater the ratio was between surface area to volume, the rate of diffusion would increase as well. For example, in cell three the surface area to volume ratio was 11.5 cm which resulted in a diffusion rate of .30 cm/min while cell one had a surface to volume ratio of 3 cm had a diffusion rate of .015 cm/min. This shows that when the surface area and volume are individually large numbers such as the values for cell one, it results in a small surface area to volume ratio and a slower rate of diffusion.Furthermore, the shape of the cells affected the rate of diffusion since the surface area and volume would vary based …show more content…
This occurs because according to osmosis, water moves down its concentration gradient from a low solute concentration to a solution with a high solute concentration. In addition, an increase in the mass of the potatoes occurs because the highly concentrated solutions were hypertonic. Potatoes with the greater increase tend to be the sweet potatoes because the potatoes already have sucrose embedded in the substance. When placed in a solution with high sucrose content, the amount of sucrose in the sweet potatoes increases because the solutes enters a cell with higher solute potential than that of the surrounding environment. When the net osmosis rate is zero the solution is isotonic because equal amounts of solute is present in the cell and the surrounding environment causing no net movement. After the experiment, the concentrations of the unknown solution was found through reviewing the mass change and water potential found. The lowest …show more content…
Not accurately cutting the agar gelatin to the desired shape can cause diffuse to take longer or shorter depending on the size of the model. In order to prevent these mistakes, one must increase the size measurement of the potato from one millimeters to two millimeters in order to avoid having a difference of sizes. Furthermore, an increase in volume of vinegar used to diffuse in part one could cause the rate of diffuse to increase in a shorter