Explain the process of osmosis in detail
Answers
Osmosis is movement of solvent from a reigon of its higher concentration to lower concentration through a semi permeable membrane. Here,region of its higher concentration means that from a place where water (solvent) is more to place where it is in less amount comparatively
When two separate solutions are separated by a semi permeable membrane, there will be movement of water molecules from their region of high concentration (dilute solution) to a region of low concentration (the highly concentrated solution) across the semi permeable membrane. The semi permeable membrane does not allow movement of solute particles across it.
The movement of the water molecules continues until the separate solutions have the same concentrations.
Solutions with the same concentrations are referred to as isotonic solutions. The solutions are said to be isotonic to each other.
A lowly concentrated solution (dilute solution) is referred to as a hypotonic solution. A hypotonic solution has less of the solute molecules but more of the solvent molecules.
A highly concentrated solution with more of the solute particles but less of the solvent particles is referred to as a hypertonic solution.
When isotonic solutions are separated with a semi permeable membrane, there will be no net movement of solvent molecules to any of the solutions since they have the same concentration of solvent molecules.