Tonicity Experiment
The purpose of this experiment was to test the tonicity of potato cells. The potato cells were placed in different test tubes with water and were left there for 15 minutes. The percent change in mass is then used to determine if the cells lost or gained water, therefore determining the tonicity of the cell. Although it was a brief short time, the final results showed that the more water the potatoes were placed in, the more hypotonic the potato becomes.
Tonicity is stated to be the state of a solution in respect of osmotic pressure. Types of tonicity used in this lab are osmosis and diffusion. In a way these two solutions are somewhat similar but differ in the way that diffusion refers to the movement of any chemical from one place to another, …show more content…
For example, hypertonic saline is often used in situations where brain swelling is a problem in order to increase the intravascular osmolality thereby pulling fluid out of tissues including the brain thereby shrinking it. Given the rapid increase in intravascular volume it provides, there is probably a role for hypertonic saline in septic shock and traumatic shock because hypertonic solutions pull free water from tissues. (Burton, M., & Ludwig, L. J. (n.d.). Fundamentals of nursing care: Concepts, connections & skills.) Another example would be in dehydration. In that situation, one needs to be careful not to alter sodium levels too quickly so initial treatment for dehydration should actually be isotonic saline until the patient is euvolemic and then hypotonic can be given if the patient remains hypernatremic. Hypotonic solutions deliver free water to tissues. (Burton, M., & Ludwig, L. J. (n.d.). Fundamentals of nursing care: Concepts, connections & skills.) A dangerous situation that could be very deadly would be when treating a patient with hyponatremia with hypertonic saline. In general isotonic saline is used instead and the rate of correction is closely controlled. Using hypertonic saline will usually cause too rapid a correction and as stated in the article “the
Tonicity is stated to be the state of a solution in respect of osmotic pressure. Types of tonicity used in this lab are osmosis and diffusion. In a way these two solutions are somewhat similar but differ in the way that diffusion refers to the movement of any chemical from one place to another, …show more content…
For example, hypertonic saline is often used in situations where brain swelling is a problem in order to increase the intravascular osmolality thereby pulling fluid out of tissues including the brain thereby shrinking it. Given the rapid increase in intravascular volume it provides, there is probably a role for hypertonic saline in septic shock and traumatic shock because hypertonic solutions pull free water from tissues. (Burton, M., & Ludwig, L. J. (n.d.). Fundamentals of nursing care: Concepts, connections & skills.) Another example would be in dehydration. In that situation, one needs to be careful not to alter sodium levels too quickly so initial treatment for dehydration should actually be isotonic saline until the patient is euvolemic and then hypotonic can be given if the patient remains hypernatremic. Hypotonic solutions deliver free water to tissues. (Burton, M., & Ludwig, L. J. (n.d.). Fundamentals of nursing care: Concepts, connections & skills.) A dangerous situation that could be very deadly would be when treating a patient with hyponatremia with hypertonic saline. In general isotonic saline is used instead and the rate of correction is closely controlled. Using hypertonic saline will usually cause too rapid a correction and as stated in the article “the