Starch Lab
“Is Starch Permeable in Cells?
Abstract
This report presents the weights of 3 samples of water with various amounts of solute after the use of osmosis. Three different tests were performed, each with a beaker of water containing varying amounts of starch from 30% concentration (12.5 grams of water) to 15% concentration (9.5 grams of water), and then 0% (10.5 grams of water). To start this experiment, we put water into a make-shift dialysis tube, a type of semi-permeable membrane tubing made from regenerated cellulose (Wikipedia). We then tied each end of the dialysis tube with floss, weighed the dialysis tubes and recorded their weights. Next, we made the starch/water solution using the formula: Volume1*Concentration1=Volume2*Concentration2. …show more content…
The experimental membrane we used in this lab acted as a barrier in which only a small number of molecules can pass through. In this experiment we wanted to show the process of osmosis, in which water passes through the aforementioned barrier. Osmosis is critical to life because the process regulates the amount of water in the cell, in turn regulates the concentration of all of the molecules and ions within the cell. The hypothesis we tested was that the cell with the higher concentration of solute (30%) will allow more water to pass through the membrane than that of the cell with a lower concentration (15%). This in turn will result in the 30% solute concentrated cell being the heaviest compared to the 15% solute concentrated cell (second heaviest) and pure water. The pure water was our negative control variable, meaning that the manufactured cell in the water would show zero weight gain. Our results concluded that our hypothesis was well founded and accurate. The results are here as follows: the negative control (pure water) had zero weight gain, the middle concentration gained a total of .5 grams and the high concentration gained a total of .8 grams. Due to a lack of exact weight controls in our initial weight values and the fact that we had only conducted one experiment, there’s potentially a lack of correlation between the percent concentration and weight gained in the
Abstract
This report presents the weights of 3 samples of water with various amounts of solute after the use of osmosis. Three different tests were performed, each with a beaker of water containing varying amounts of starch from 30% concentration (12.5 grams of water) to 15% concentration (9.5 grams of water), and then 0% (10.5 grams of water). To start this experiment, we put water into a make-shift dialysis tube, a type of semi-permeable membrane tubing made from regenerated cellulose (Wikipedia). We then tied each end of the dialysis tube with floss, weighed the dialysis tubes and recorded their weights. Next, we made the starch/water solution using the formula: Volume1*Concentration1=Volume2*Concentration2. …show more content…
The experimental membrane we used in this lab acted as a barrier in which only a small number of molecules can pass through. In this experiment we wanted to show the process of osmosis, in which water passes through the aforementioned barrier. Osmosis is critical to life because the process regulates the amount of water in the cell, in turn regulates the concentration of all of the molecules and ions within the cell. The hypothesis we tested was that the cell with the higher concentration of solute (30%) will allow more water to pass through the membrane than that of the cell with a lower concentration (15%). This in turn will result in the 30% solute concentrated cell being the heaviest compared to the 15% solute concentrated cell (second heaviest) and pure water. The pure water was our negative control variable, meaning that the manufactured cell in the water would show zero weight gain. Our results concluded that our hypothesis was well founded and accurate. The results are here as follows: the negative control (pure water) had zero weight gain, the middle concentration gained a total of .5 grams and the high concentration gained a total of .8 grams. Due to a lack of exact weight controls in our initial weight values and the fact that we had only conducted one experiment, there’s potentially a lack of correlation between the percent concentration and weight gained in the