The Concept Of Diffusion And Osmosis

Editorials News | Aug-29-2022

The Concept Of Diffusion And Osmosis

Can you smell a delicious cake have you ever wondered why your fingers prune in water or how plants manage to take up nutrients from the soil? All of these things required the movement of substances by either diffusion or osmosis. With these two methods of transport, the exchange of material occurs between cell and their environment across the cell membrane. To make this exchange as efficient as possible some organisms have evolved specialized exchange surfaces like the alveoli in the lungs or the root hairs and plants. All the nephrons and kidneys depending upon what is being exchanged and which direction along the concentration gradient things are traveling will determine whether the diffusion of osmosis will be used.

Let's start with diffusion the lovely smell of the cake spread around the room by diffusion. Diffusion is the process in which particles spread out from each other they move from high concentrations. So right by the cakes to an area of low concentration so everywhere else in the room is diffusion particle move down the concentration gradients until they will be distributed for particles to move like this they need to be a gas or particles or dissolved substance. Diffusion is seen throughout nature and allows the substance to pass into or out cell across the cell membrane. But they must be dissolved and there must be a concentration gradient that they can move from high concentration to low concentration. Gas exchange in the lungs to oxygen moving from the alveoli into the blood and carbon dioxide from the blood to the alveoli are both great examples of diffusion.

Osmosis is very similar to diffusion but just for water, it is the movement of water into or out of a cell again. It is the movement from our dilute solution so high concentration of water molecules down to concentration gradient to a more concentrated solution. With so low concentration of water molecules, the water molecules move across the partially permeable membrane water molecules move at random so some go back across the membrane but the overall net effect is that there is a moment to the more concentrated side or the side with less water until equilibrium is reached or until there is no net movement of water anymore.

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