Osmosis

[Jarryd]

In biology i learnt that osmosis is the phenomena you commonly see in semi-permeable membranes of a cell were water moves from a dilute area (lots of H2O molecules) to a concentrated area (more solute in the water). And then it is pretty much left at that in biology, from a chemistry stand why is this exactly? is it because the ionic charge of the salt that is being diluted attracts more water molecules through the membrane? Or is it more to do with water having more ability to 'move about' in a concentrated solution like other types of diffusion? (which made no sense to me but seemed to be the way my bio teacher was explaining it)

[RyanJ]

I'm not shure but I would agree that it probably has something to do with the attractive forced between the hydrogen bonds inwater and the solute.

 

I think the equations used to explain why is caled the ideal solution equation and its related to chemical potential:

 

[math]RT in(1 - x_2)[/math]

 

Were R is the gas constant, T is temperature and [math]x_2[/math] is the solute concentration in terms of mole fraction

 

And nature seems to like thing being equal: diffusion likes the concentration of gasses to be equal, when you suck air out of a can the can gets crushed to equalize the preassure

 

Not shure if thats right but I hope it helped if it is

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones