Lab 1.

Osmosis and Di usion

Zekai Wang Wed Nov 8

Guiding Question: Why Do Red Blood Cells Appear Bigger After Being Exposed to Distilled
Water?

Materials Used:

- Scale (g)

- Iodine

- Starch solution (starch is a polysaccharide)

- Distilled water

- Beakers

- Graduated cylinder

- Dialysis tubing (assume that it behaves just like the membranes of RBCs)

Claim:
When red blood cells are exposed to distilled water, they undergo a process called hemolysis.
Hemolysis occurs due to osmosis, which is the movement of water across a semipermeable
membrane from an area of low solute concentration to an area of high solute concentration.

Evidence:
#1 #2 #3

Change in Color Full change 1/2 change 1/4 change

Initial mass (g) 7.74 8.96 8.78

Final mass (g) 7.92 9.38 8.97

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 The picture above is the dialysis tubes ( lled with starch) after being put in iodine water for
three hours.

The graph below is a bar graph of the table above.

Initial Mass (g) Final Mass (g)

10

9.25

8.5

7.75

7
Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3

Reasoning:
As you can see from the evidence above, the nal weight of our experiment was heavier than
the initial weight because the water from the beaker went into the dialysis tubing, which is the
red blood cell in our experiment. This is more evidently shown in the picture where the water
inside the dialysis tubing has changed colours. This is because the solution inside the tubing is
starch and there was iodine dropped into the distilled water. The starch solution changes
colour when iodine is added because of the formation of a starch-iodine combination,
speci cally with the amylose component of starch.

Explanation:
In the case of the guiding question, the distilled water—which is e ectively pure water
without any solutes—has a lower solute content than the red blood cells. In order to balance
the solute content on both sides of the cell membrane, water molecules subsequently enter the
red blood cells. The red blood cells begin to ll and expand as water enters it. Under a
microscope, the cells seem larger because the cell membrane expands as the water seeps in.
The red blood cells may eventually rupture or burst if there is an excessive in ow of water,
releasing their contents into the surrounding solution.
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