Kids Research Express

. G. Osmosis When a substance dissolves in a liquid, the resulting mixture is called a solution. Osmosis occurs when molecules of the initial liquid pass through a membrane, but molecules of the dissolved substance do not. The molecules of the initial liquid can pass through the membrane because they are relatively small. Osmosis tends to equalize the concentration of the solutions on both sides of a membrane. The membrane in this case is called semipermeable, because it allows one part of the mixture to pass through but not another. Cells in living organisms consist mostly of water, and they are surrounded by a watery environment. If the concentration of a dissolved substance, such as sugar or salt, differs inside and outside a cell, osmosis causes water to pass through the cell’s membrane from the area of lower concentration to the area of higher concentration, until the concentration on each side of the membrane is equal. Osmosis makes sugar and salt good food preservatives. When ha...

Osmosis, in botany and chemistry, the flow of one constituent of a solution through a membrane while the other constituents are blocked and unable to pass through the membrane. Experimentation is necessary to determine which membranes permit selective flow, or osmosis, because not all membranes act in this way. Many membranes allow all or none of the constituents of a solution to pass through; only a few allow a selective flow. In classic demonstration of osmosis, a vertical tube containing a solution of sugar, with its lower end closed off by a semipermeable membrane, is placed in a container of water. As the water passes through the membrane into the tube, the level of sugar solution in the tube rises visibly. A semipermeable membrane that may be used for such a demonstration is the membrane found just inside the shell of an egg, that is, the film that keeps the white of the egg from direct contact with the shell. In this demonstration, the water moves in both directions through the ...