The effects of of the concentration of salt solution on potato cylindrical strips

Introduction
We will not understand osmosis if we do not know anything about a solution's composition. What is a solution? A solution is formed when a solute dissolves in a solvent 1. A solvent is solely a medium which one or more substances dissolve in. A solute is a substance which is dissolved in a solution. The concentrations of the solute and the solvent of a solution are related inversely. The relationship between a solute and a solvent can be visualised by the imagination of two identical graduated cylinders containing different amounts of salt in water as illustrated in the figure below:

Water 50%

Water 25%

Salt 50%

Salt 75%

Figure 1: Inverse proportion between the amount of a solute(salt) and the amount of water in a solution. As in the above illustration shows that as the amount of salt increases from 50% to 75%, the amount of water decreases from 50% to 25%, and vice versa. What is omosis? Osmosis is the movement or diffusion of water molecules across a partially permeable membrane from a region of higher water concentration to a region of lower water concentration. In other words, water molecules move down their concentration gradient2.

1 2

The stardard solvent used in the laboratory is ussualy water. CGP GCSE Additional Science, The Revision Guide, page 8 ,

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Illustration 1: Water molecules passing through a selectively permeable membrane. A stock solution3 is diluted by adding more solvent into it to reduce its strength, this means that the new solution will contain more water and less amount of solute comparing to the stock. The solute molecules take up room where water molecules would have occupied as in a more diluted solution (the solute is less concentrated). The water molecules tend to move to where there are less of them down their concentration gradient. As illustrated in Illustration 1, water molecules move from the dilute sugar solution where there are more water molecules to the concentrated sugar solution where there are less water molecules. After a certain amount of time, water level on the left side of the beaker rises up while the water level on the right side drops. Osmosis can happen with the help of a semi permeable membrane or selectively permeable membrane which is made from a thin layer of material (cell membranes in potato are semi permeable as well) which only allow small molecules like water pass through but prevent big molecules like sugar molecules passing through it. If plant or animal cells are immersed in a solution, some of the following phenomena might take place: If the surrounding solution has higher water concentration than the cells, water will move into the cells making them become heavier. Water molecules pass through the cell membranes freely in both directions, because they are small enough to move across the scpecial structure of the semi permeable membranes. Actually more water enters the cells than leaves resulting that the cells tend to swell up. If the concentration of water in the surrounding solution is the same as the concentration in the cells, there would be no network movement of water molecules across the cell membranes. Water still exchanges across the membranes but the amount entering would balance the amount going out the cells, the cells would stay with their original sizes. Another the case is that the cencentration of water of the surrounding solution is lower than the cells then water will move out of the cells resulting that the cells are likely to shrink. Again, water will cross the memberanes back and forth, but more
3 More information can be found at: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~bioslabs/methods/solutions/stocks.htm

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water leaves the cells than entering into them.

Aims
Investigating the effects of different concentration of salt solutions on plant cells (potato cells) by osmosis.

Dependent Variable
The mass of the potato cylinderical strips after being immersed for approximately 72 hours in different concentration of salt solutions. The dimension of the strip after being in salt solutions

Independent Variable
The concentrations salt solutions The volume of salt solution being used The size of the potato cylindrical strips

Control Variables
a) b) c) d) The original length of potato cylinders (1.5 cm in this investigation). The same room temperature (every solution is undergone in the same condition). The same elapsed time for all the chips being in salt solutions (72 hours) Same type of potato used (different potatoes might have been grown in different locations which may lead to the differentiation in the amount of water they have originally). e) The same volume of solution used, so all the potato chips are covered under the same volume of the solution to make the investigation to be fair. f) The same type of boiling tube (the same size, big enough to put one potato chip into it) to make sure that all the potato chips are immersed in the same level of liquid.

Apparatus
These items listed below are what we would like to use for our investigation, if some of the m are not available in the lab, we should still find our ways to work around to accomplish our project, but among them some are compulsory. 01 potato which is big and thick enough to be cut into 6 potato chips with the length of 1.5 cm. A certain size of a coke borer 06 boiling tubes 03 testube racks 6 glass beakers (100ml) if they are available (we should have at least one in hand). 06 glass or plastic measuring cylinders (100ml) if they are available A 02 decimal places balance A chopping board A scalpel or a knife A peeler to peel the potato's outer skin 06 sheets of tissue papers for drying the potato chips after they have been taken out

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of the solutions 06 pieces of filter papers 06 few weighing boats if they are availab 500ml of saturated salt solution

Method
1) Use the peeler to remove the potato's outer skin and a knife to tim it down to a rectangular cuboid, ready to be bored into cylinderical chips 2) Put the potato cuboid on the chopping board and use a desired size of cork borer and vertically bore six cylindrical tubes from the potato. 3) 4) 5) Use a ruler and scalpel to trim each of the six cylindrical tubes to 1.5 cm in length. Place each chip on a piece of filter paper and label them from A to F. Set up the six boiling tubes (2 boiling tubes on each test tube rack) containing salt solution with the concentrations as: i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. 6) 100 ml of salt solution (purely from the saturated solution4). 80 ml of salt solution 20 ml of water (80% relatively to the stock). 60 ml of salt solution 40 ml of water (60% relatively to the stock). 50 ml of salt solution 50 ml of water (50% relatively to the stock). 20 ml of salt solution 80 ml of water (20% relatively to the stock). 10 ml of salt solution 90 ml of water (10% relatively to the stock).

Put each chip into a weighing boat and place the boat on the top pan balance to find out the chip's mass(g) then take the mass value to 2 dicimal places, note down the record as the original mass on a piece of filter paper where each chip is labeled.

7)

Use a beaker and a meausring cylinder to measure out 50ml of salt solution of each concentration then pour the content into each labeled boiling tube associated with potato strip A to F.

8)

Immerse one strip of potato into each beaker which have been labeled with respective solution and leave them aside for a period of 72 hours.

9)

Take each chip out of the boiling tube, carefully and quickly dry the excess water covering the wet strip which is not related to the osmosis process to eliminate errors.

10)

Weigh each potato chip twice and record the results of the mass differences (by deducing the new value of potato chip's mass by its original mass which have been noted on each solution's label) into the table to find the avarage.

The solubility of salt in water at room temperature is about 36g/100ml, as its saturated point.

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11)

Carry out the data analys and sketch the graph showing the relationship between the concentration of salt solutions and the mass difference of the potato chips, mark the isotonic point5 if there is.

12)

State our conclusion about what we have found about the relationship between the concentration of salt solution and the mass difference of the potato chip and compare what we have found to what we have predicted.

13)

Evalute our results what we could have done to make out results more reliable, and what we should avoid to reduce the factors which may affect our results of our practicals in the futures.

14)

State the biological significance of osmosis process in plants and animals.

Hypothesis
As we have discussed about the characteristics of the osmosis process previously, now it is time to do the investigation to find out the truth of osmosis by immerse some potato chips in salt solutions with vary in their concentrations and check differences of the mass of the potato chips before and after a certain amount of time being in the solutions. Before we do our investigation we could make a prediction about what might happen during the process of omosis based on the foundation knowledge which we have already learnt as follow: As the concentration of salt in the solution drops the difference in mass of the potato chip becomes wider. This means that if we reduces the amount of salt in the solution, the cells swell and the mass of the potato chip increases after the experiment. This hypothesis could be wrong. It could be the other way round as an alternative hypothesis. Let us find out what actually will happen.

Results of data collected after the investigation

After of a period of 72 hours, potato chips being immersed in the salt solution, we take the chips out and weigh them twice then record all the mass differences into the data table as follow:

The isotonic point in this experiment is the point where the concentration of water in the potato cells is the same with the concetration of water in the surrounding medium, means the salt soltion. At this point water molecules enter and leave the cell at the same rate causing the cell to stay with it original size without losing or gaining any mass, this state is called water equilibrium.

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Salt concentration G1 (% ) JIQ 100 80 60 50 20 10 0.27 0.13 0.30 0.47 0.10 0.10

Change in Mass (g) G2 ROGUH G3 pkq G4Sk 0.09 0.29 0.31 0.23 0.34 0.19 0.26 0.25 0.45 0.23 0.40 0.36 0.16 0.16 0.29 0.20 0.35 0.22 Average change in mass 0.20 0.19 0.27 0.25 0.35 0.25

G5LVJ 0.15 0.16 0.21 0.17 0.42 0.18

G6 0.28 0.15 0.03 0.20 0.47 0.44

Graph
A graphical reflection based on our data of the relationship between the concentration of salt solution and the mass difference of the potato chip is shown in three graphs plotted according to the concentrations and the avarage of mass differences with different level of best fit6 as below, but there is no isotonic point to be found:

Graph 1: The relationship between the concentration of salt solution and the mass difference of potato chip with the line of best fit at level 1 (means best fit of all points in general).
6 All the graphs in this investigation are generated by a program called Geogebra, a geometry package providing for both graphical and algebraic input. More information can be found at: http://www.geogebra.org/cms/

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Graph 2: The relationship between the concentration of salt solution and the mass difference of potato chip with the line of best fit at level 2 (means between two points relatively).

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Graph 3: The relationship between the concentration of salt solution and the mass difference of potato chip with the line of best fit at level 3 (means between three points relatively)

Conclusion
As we have predicted earlier, when the concentration of salt solution drops, the mass diffence of the potato chip becomes wider. This trend is shown clearly when the concentration of salt solution drops from 80 to 60%, 50 to 20% while the mass difference rises smoothly from 0.19 to 0.27g, and 0.25 to 0.35g respectively. Three graphs were plotted associated with their level of relation, overall, 2 points and 3 points which helps to review how closely the values we found relate to each other. Graph 1 is a straigh line graph whose gradient7 shows that the ralationship between mass difference and the concentration of salt solution is inversly proportional (gradient of the line is negative). Graph 1 also give us the maximum mass that a potatochip may gain is around 0.375g. At IGCSE level, stop at graph 1 is significant enough to give a conclusion about the investigation, moreover graph 2 shows a smooth nagative gradient from point 2 to point 5, but the curve goes up after passing its minima at P5 (point 5) leading unpredicted end. However graph 2 gives us a closer look at how closely the data floats. Even a better view about the mentioned relationship is shown in graph 3, a smoother curve which drops from point 2 to point 4 and goes up to point three then drops down at point 5. Graph 3 also shows us some odd values which might have been recorded by mistakes.
7 The gradient of a curve is its derivative found by differentiating the fucntion.

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Evaluation
Even though the graphs show a smooth negative gradient according to the data we have found, but our data is still not adequate enough to confidently support our hypothesis because of the concentration dropping intervals are not regular. We should have alternate the concentration dropping as regular pattern (e.g. the concontration decreases 10% by each step). Regulating the concentration dilution would give us more data to have a better and more reliable view of the relationship between concentration and the mass change, and furthermore the behaviour of data. There are some odd values found in our investigation which might have been taken by careless or inexperienced experimenters which means more data is needed to find out what probably went wrong. To help the investigation more reliable, we should carry out three experiments parallelly for each concentration of salt solution. Use accurate measuring equipment, reading the result carefully, avoid being distracted by people from other groups ask for things or borrow equipment.

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