OSMOSIS IN RED BLOOD CELLKnights of the Long Table

Introduction

Osmosis is a special type of diffusion.

Tonicity is the ability of a solution to induce a net flow of water through a selectively permeable membrane.

Objective

The experiment aims to show what would happen to red blood cells when subjected to hypotonic, hypertonic and isotonic solutions

Materials and Methods

Materials and Methods

Materials and Methods

NaCl Solution

0.07M 0.15M 0.30M

Materials and Methods

Every 10

minutes

Results

Slide Initial cell size(mm)

Average cell size(mm)

A(0.07 M NaCl)

0.004,0.006,0.006 0.005

B(0.15 M NaCl)

0.105,0.105,0.105 0.105

C(0.30 M Na

0.14,0.105,0.105 0.117

Table 1. Initial Size of Red Blood Cells

Results

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 450

0.001

0.002

0.003

0.004

0.005

0.006

0.007

0.008

Figure 1. Size of Red Blood Cells on Slide A (0.07 M NaCl)

Results

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 450

0.02

0.04

0.06

0.08

0.1

0.12

Figure 2. Size of Red Blood Cells on Slide B (0.15M NaCl)

Results

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 450

0.02

0.04

0.06

0.08

0.1

0.12

0.14

Figure 3. Size of Red Blood Cells on Slide C (0.3M)

Results

Graph 1 showed no net increase or decrease in the cell size of Red Blood Cells treated with O.07 M NaCl.

Graph 2 showed no net increase or decrease in the cell size of Red blood cells treated with 0.15 M NaCl.

Graph 3 showed a net decrease in cell size of Red blood cells treated with 0.3 M NaCl

Discussion

Osmosis is a process by which water moves through a selectively permeable membrane. The net flow of water would be from a region of lower solute concentration to that of a higher solute concentration until both have an equal concentration on both sides of the selectively permeable membrane (Starr & Taggart, 1995). Hypotonic solution results in Hemolysis

Isotonic solution

Hypertonic solution results in Crenation

Discussion

Some of our experimental results differ with that of the theoretical results .

The measurement of the cell sizes were determined by getting the average of three random cells in the slide which can be a source of error because those three cells might not represent the majority of the cells.

Another error could be the uneven distribution of the NaCl throughout the slide which might not have reached other areas.