Question

Consider a cell put in a salt solution. There is more salt in the cell than in the solution (/it's environment), but there is more water in the solution than inside the cell. Which direction will the water go?? Or is there any movement at all?? Will the cell remain the same size/shrink/no change in shape???

Answer 1

Osmosis is the movement of WATER molecules across a semipermeable membrane (such as the cell membrane) from where there is a high concentration of water to where there is a low concentration of water.

Salt triggers osmosis by attracting the water and causing it to move toward it, across the membrane. Salt is a solute. When you add water to a solute, it diffuses, spreading out the concentration of salt, creating a solution.

Here Water in cells moves toward the highest concentration of salt. As there is more salt in a cell than outside it, the water will move through the membrane into the cell, causing it to increase in size, swelling up as the water fills the cell in its imperative to combine with the salt