Outline:

Osmosis

Water potential

Solute or osmotic potential

Pressure potential

Gravity potential
Why does water move this way?

What chemical principle is at work here?

The 2nd law of thermodynamics.

Which is the higher energy state, high concentration

of solute or low?

Moving water into the high solute side lowers its

concentration, or attempts to.

In plant cells, movement of water into the cell does not

substantially increase the cell’s volume because it is
held by the cell wall. So, no increase in volume, but an
increase in pressure.
This brings us to

WATER POTENTIAL

Some background

Recall, the energy available to do work in a chemical

system is called Gibbs free energy.

G = U + PV – TS, Eqn 1

U is the internal energy (i.e., vibrational, rotational,

translational, bond energies, gravitational, magnetic
and electrical components).

PV is the pressure / volume component

TS is the temperature / entropy component

 Chemical potential of species ‘i’ is given by

Eqn 2

Can define the chemical potential of PURE water at

20°C, 1 atm pressure and sea level.

μw *

Often the standard height is the height at the base of

the plant.
Can derive from physical chemistry,

μw = μw* + RTlnNw + VwP + mwgh Eqn 3

where Nw = mole fraction of water in the system

= nw / (nw + Σns); ns = moles of solute

R = gas const

T is temp in Kelvin.

Vw = partial molal volume of water; (∂V / ∂nw)

P = pressure above 1 atm

mw = mass of water

g = acceleration due to gravity

h = height above sea level

ASIDE:

Some terms and MKS system units

Mass (m); kg, g, mg, etc.

Length; meter

Acceleration (a); m / s2

Force (F = ma); kg x m / s2 = Newton

Pressure (F/area); Newton / m2 = Pascal (Pa)

Energy (work: F x distance); Newton x m = Joule (J)

Rearrange Eqn3 (subtract µw* and divide by Vw)

Eqn 4

Rewrite these terms as

Ψw = Ψ = Ψs + Ψp + Ψg Eqn 5

Subscripts s, p and g denote the effects of solute, pressure, and gravity on the
total water potential.

Units of Ψ are what? Look at Eqn 4.

Pressure.
What is pressure?

Units are Newtons / m2

Multiply by (m/m) to get

Newton m / m2 * m = Joule / m3 = energy per volume

For water potential, we usually use MPa = 106 Pa.

Working pressure of a
fire hose is 0.8 to 2 MPa
 Pressure can be positive or negative
Pressure Car tire Pressure
washer Household pressure required to
15 MPa water 0.25 MPa blow up a
pressure
balloon
0.3 MPa
0.01 MPa

Vacuum cleaner Inside typical plant cell Human blood

-0.02 MPa 0.5 to 1.5 MPa pressure
(household) < 0.02 MPa
-0.1 MPa
(commercial)
Laboratory Inside xylem:
vacuum From +1 MPa to
-0.01 MPa -3 MPa or lower

* These numbers are relative to atmospheric pressure (0.1 MPa), not absolute Mschel; Image 14869 CDC/ Nasheka Powell

© 2014 American Society of Plant Biologists

Water flows spontaneously from regions of high
activity to regions of low activity! Why?

A spontaneous reaction runs with a negative change

in the Gibbs free energy.

Recall that DG means the Gibbs free energy from

the starting point subtracted from the Gibbs free
energy at equilibrium.

Since the energy is lowest at equilibrium, DG by the

above definition is negative.

© 2014 American Society of Plant Biologists

Ψs
Solute potential = osmotic potential

Solutes reduce the energy of water by increasing the

entropy of the system.

So Ψs is essentially an entropy effect.

The nature of the solute does not affect the Ψs.

© 2014 American Society of Plant Biologists

By the way we defined Ψs, we have

𝑅𝑇
Ψs = 𝑙𝑛𝑁𝑤
𝑉𝑤

Nw (the mole fraction of water) is not easy to determine.

Can simplify by writing Nw + Ns = 1, or Nw = 1 – Ns.

So we can rewrite (RT/Vw)lnNw as (RT/Vw)ln(1-Ns)

The power series approximation says ln(1-x ) = -x -1/2x2 – 1/3x3 …

And if Ns is small we can write

Ψs = -(RT/Vw)Ns.

© 2014 American Society of Plant Biologists

 Since Ns = ns / (ns + nw) and ns << nw, Ns = ns / nw

Ψs = -(RT/Vw) x Ns = -(RT/Vw) x ns/nw

And with Vw x nw = volume,

Ψs = -RT x (ns/volume), so

Ψs = -RT ΣCs

With ΣCs = concentration of total solutes

= osmolarity

This is true for ideal solutions. Solutions > 0.1 M are often not ideal. But we will
assume we are dealing with ideal solutions in this class.

At 20°C = 293 K and R = 0.0083 J/mol, and with ΣCs in mol/L, we can write

Ψs = -2.44 ΣCs, in units of MPa

© 2014 American Society of Plant Biologists

Ψp

Pressure potential = effect of hydrostatic pressure on

water potential.

Positive pressure raises the Ψw, negative pressure

lowers Ψw. Both positive and negative pressures occur
within plants.

Positive pressure referred to as turgor.

Negative pressure referred to as tension.
A cell experiencing no Ψp is referred to as flaccid.

Since Ψp is calibrated to a reference state of 1 atm, an

open beaker of pure water has a Ψp = 0.

© 2014 American Society of Plant Biologists

Ψg

Gravitational potential depends on height above

reference height, density of water (ρw) and
gravitational acceleration.

Ψg = ρw x g x h

= Ψg = 998 kg m-3 x 9.806 m s-2 x h

ρw x g x h = 0.01 MPa x h (in meters)

Thus raising water a distance of 10 meters results

in an increase in Ψg of 0.1 Mpa.

We can often omit Ψg in considerations of cellular

water potential. In that case,

Ψ = Ψs + Ψp.

© 2014 American Society of Plant Biologists

© 2014 American Society of Plant Biologists