DIFFUSION ACROSS THE CELL MEMBRANE

All kinds of life are made up of small cells. Cells are the smallest unit of life, anything
smaller than a cell is non-living. How do these tiny things even communicate with each
other? Just like we talk by exchanging words, cells talk through the exchange of
different molecules. The fact is, even in these extremely tiny things, there is order
and arrangement! Every cell is arranged like a town, and will always have 3 things: a
nucleus which acts as a town hall or control center, a plasma membrane which is the
wall of the town and cytoplasm which is the town itself and has many different
organelles (small organs) in it like buildings and houses.

All kinds of conversations with the cell happen at its town wall, the plasma membrane.
Now, the molecules are just some peaceful guys looking for some comfort, too many
molecules of the same kind at the same place is very chaotic. So molecules always
tend to move away from places where there are too many of them, to places
where there are fewer of them.

Say there is a cell in your body with blood around it that has gathered lots of CO2
molecules inside it. there would be a lot of CO2 molecules inside the cell, but very few of
them outside. In this case, the CO2 molecules inside will go through the cell membrane
and into the blood where there are fewer of them. This process is called diffusion.

“Diffusion is the spontaneous movement of a substance from a region of high

concentration to a region where its concentration is low.”

The movement of these molecules is spontaneous because it is simply their tendency to

move to places where there are less of them. After all, they are peaceful and
silence-loving guys. The concentration of something is high where there is a lot of it, and
low where it is not much. If I have a lot of money then I would have a high concentration
of money, similarly, the blood outside the cell has fewer CO2 molecules, so it has a low
concentration of CO2.
Diffusion is extremely important, if things couldn't diffuse in and out of a cell, important
processes such as the gaseous exchange of CO2 and O2 which allow us to be alive would
not happen. A lot of cells also eat and gain nutrition through diffusion. Lots of solids,
liquids, and gases can diffuse in and out of a cell. Water also follows the law of diffusion.

Say you put a cell that has too much water inside it into a very salty solution of salt and
water, there are too many water molecules inside the cell but not many outside, so the
water molecules inside will go through the cell membrane and go outside where there
are less of them, and the cell will shrink and shrivel up.

This is called osmosis. Osmosis is a special word for the diffusion of water
across a selectively permeable membrane. The cell membrane is called selectively
permeable because it does not allow just any substance to come and go through it, only
useful ones. The salt molecule from this example does not travel in and out of the cell.
When there are more salt molecules outside the cell compared to inside the solution
outside will be called hypertonic.
Similarly, when salt concentration outside is the same as inside the cell, it is called
isotonic.
And when salt concentration outside is less than inside, it's called hypotonic

“Osmosis is the movement of a solvent (such as water) through a selectively permeable

membrane to a solution of higher solute concentration”

It should be clear that compared to our cells:

Solution outside Salt (solute) concentration Water (solvent)

concentration

Hypertonic more less

isotonic same same

hypotonic less more

Now, dropping our normal cell into an isotonic solution would do nothing, because
there are equal amounts of water molecules on both sides, they will not move anywhere.

But dropping it in a hypotonic solution, which has more water but less salt would cause
water molecules from outside to rush inside where they are less, and cause the cell to
become fat and swell up.