Rate Of Diffusion Lab Report

Introduction
There are many different factors that can influence the rate of diffusion through a membrane. Chemical kinetics plays a large part in diffusion. In order for a solute to passively diffuse through a membrane, it must line up with a pore in the membrane and pass through it (textbook 101). The concentration gradient is also important for diffusion because solutes diffuse from areas of high concentration to areas of low concentration (textbook page 101). There are different factors that can affect the rate of this diffusion. Our intent was to measure how increasing temperature would affect the rate of diffusion through a membrane. We hypothesized that increasing the temperature would increase the rate of diffusion because the solutes would move around faster which would increase the likelihood of them lining up
1).
At 35.5°C the rate of diffusion increased until 0.039 mol/L when it began to decrease (Fig. 2). After 30 minutes, the concentration of iodine that had diffused was 0.048mol/L which contrasts the 0.011 mol/L that diffused at room temperature Fig. 1: The concentration of iodine diffusing across the membrane (mol/L) vs rate of diffusion (molecules/cm2 *min). The concentration was measured at 3 minutes intervals for 30 minutes. The increased for 9 minutes and then began to decrease.

Fig. 2: The concentration of iodine (mol/L) diffusing across the membrane at 35.5°C vs the rate of diffusion (molecules/cm2*min). The concentration was measure at 3 minute intervals for 30 minutes. The rate increased for 21 minutes until it began to decrease.