Potato experiment | Osmosis | Biology

Introduction
Aims and Objective
to find out the effect of osmosis on potatoes by placing potato chips in different strength sugar
solutions.
Hypothesis: that the potato chips will become soft and rubbery because their mass will decrease
as they lose water in strong sugar solutions because of osmosis.
Materials and Method used
A potato, salt, water (if you have distilled water, that kind is best), a couple of drinking glasses.

Result and Observation

If you take a liter of pure water, and compare it to a liter of sea water, which is very salty, there
is less water present in sea water liter because some of that liter is occupied by salt. The saltwater
has a lower water potential. If there is a partially permeable membrane, like a cell membrane,
separating two different samples of water, there will be a net movement of water from the place
with higher water potential to the place with lower water potential. This is the reason plant roots
take in water: the rain water then enters the soil has a higher water potential than inside of the
roots, so water moves into the roots by osmosis. We can demonstrate this in a lab setting using
potatoes. First you’ll need a cork borer to get your potato strips. Push it through the potato, then
use the narrower piece to push the strip out. For this experiment we need 18 strips. Once you’ve
got as much as you need, tidy them up with a knife to remove the skins. All strips need to be the
same length to begin with. He we’re cutting them all down to 6cm. Once they’re ready, get 6
beakers and put 3 tubes in each. This will give you three repeats for each solution. Next thing to
do is make your solutions. Put a sheet of paper on the balance, hit “tare” to get starting point of
zero, and add the salt until it reads “1g”. Once that’s in the beaker, you need 100 mL of water.
Pour into the measuring cylinder keeping your eyes on level with “100mL” until it reaches the
line. And then add that to your salt. Here we’ve just made a salt solution of “1 g per 100mL”. In
this experiment we need six solutions: 0g per 100ml, which is just pure water, and 1 to 5 g/
100mL in 1 g increments. Once the solutions are ready, pour them in to immerse the potato
strips. Start the timer, and leave them for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes you have to measure all
of the strips. Measure them as accurately as possible. To the nearest mm is good for this
experiment. As you’re working with the potato strips you probably notice that the once
immersed in more concentrated solutions are more soft, which the ones immersed in lower
concentrations are much more turgid. Make a quick note of each value you measure as you’re
going. To process the data you need a table of results with all concentrations listed, as well as the
starting lengths of the strips. These all started at 6.0cm. In the next column put in the values you
measured, and then calculate the percentage change for each individual strip. Notice the negative
sign on some values, this tells us whether the strips increased or decreased in length. Next you
can take an average of changes in length. These are the values that we need to put on a graph.
The graph should show the average change in length against the salt concentration. And the
results from this experiment show a nice downward curve. The lower salt concentrations result in
an increase in length of the potato strip, meaning water has ENTERED the potato strips by
osmosis. This means there is a higher water potential inside the solution compared with the
potato. We have a hypotonic solution. At higher salt concentrations, however, we have a
decrease in potato strip length. This tells us the water potential is higher inside of the potatoes, so
water as left the potato strips by osmosis. We can say that the solutions are hypertonic to the
potatoes. At the point the graph crosses zero, which is about 1.4 g/100mL salt, the solution is
isotonic, meaning the water potential inside potato is equal to the solution, to at that point there is
no net movement of water.
Experiment further:
Does the process of osmosis work with other pieces of fruits or vegetables? What about the
temperature of water? Does that make it get flimsy faster or slower? Lots of things for you to
test… remember science is about making observations, testing ideas, and then asking more
questions.
I hope you enjoyed this simple experiment. If you have more questions about this, or need tips
about science fair ideas around this topic (or others), contact the author.
Conclusion- The concept of osmosis is clearly demonstrated by this experiment. Water
molecules are observed to have moved from the region where they are highly concentrated to the
region where they have a low concentration through a semi-permeable membrane in the cells of
the potato. From the experiment, it can be deduced that in order for osmosis to take place there
must be a semi-permeable membrane that separates two regions that have different concentration
of solvent molecules. Osmosis can, therefore, be used to explain how plant cells get water from
the soil and the transpiration process whereby plant cells lose water into the atmosphere. When
water is entering a plant cell, its wall (a semi-permeable membrane) prevents excess water from
entering as this can make it burst due to osmotic pressure

https://videozoo.online/video/file/osmosis-in-potato-strips-bio-lab-jTDATlaBV-o
https://www.metrofamilymagazine.com/April-2013/Simple-Science-Experiments-Osmosis-with-
Potato-Slices/
https://www.prolificresearchpaperwriters.com/19-coursework-writing-help/223-buy-potato-
osmosis-lab-reports