Egg Diffusion Lab

In this lab, we took two eggs that had been soaked in vinegar for two days, measured their weight and circumference, placed one in deionized water and the other one in sugar water, and after two days, we took them out and remeasured them.

The class date shows very little change with the egg soaked in deionized water, the average in change in mass being -0.44% and the average in change in circumference being 7.78%.

For the egg soaked in sugar water, the average in change in mass was -45.9% and the average in change in weight being -22.1%. This big change was caused by passive diffusion, which is the process when molecules move in or out of the cell depending on the situation, from high concentration to low concentration and requires no energy. The movement from in or out of the cell is decided by the concentration of solvents and solutes in and out of the cell. Since solutes cannot move in or out of a cell, solvents move so that the cell can reach equilibrium. Since sugar is a solute and water is a solvent, the egg loses water so that it can reach equilibrium, causing it to shrivel up.

Cell's internal environment changes because of passive diffusion. If there is a higher concentration of solutes outside the cell membrane, solvents moves out of the cell, which is called hypertonic, which is what happens to the egg in sugar water egg, and causes it to shrivel up. If there is a higher concentration of solutes inside the cell membrane, solvents move inside of the cell, which is called hypotonic, which is what happened to the egg in vinegar, and caused it to grow. If there is an equal concentration of solutes and solvents inside and outside of the cell membrane, which is called isotonic, the solvents move in and out of cell, replacing each other so they stay in equilibrium, and do not change in size. Cells diffuse so they can reach equilibrium because that means everything is evened out in and out of the cell, which is the cell's goal.

This lab demonstrates hypertonic diffusion because the egg in the sugar water had more solutes, which was the sugar, outside than inside, which caused solvents to leave the egg, causing the egg to lose water and other solvents, making it shrivel up and become smaller.

The salting of roads to make snow melt affects plants near the salted roads. They start to shirvel up because of the salt. They shrivel up because they have more solutes, the salt, outside than inside, so solvents leave the plant to reach equilibrium, which in turn, causes the plant to shrivel up and maybe die.

I would want to test if putting a shriveled up egg in deionized water, would give it's size back. I would want to test this to see if hypertonic diffusion can be reversed completely or if it has lasting affects.