Lab Materials: Diffusion and the Cell Membrane

Once you have your supplies, the rest of the lab is pretty straightforward. The one thing to remember is that the water will be passing over the dialysis tubing, but not the sugar. To use Beaker B as an example, the “cell” will have a 1% sugar solution, which is 1% sugar to 99% water. The solution it is sitting in will be 50% sugar solution containing 50% water. There is a higher concentration of water inside the cell than out of the cell. Therefore, we would expect more water to flow out of the cell from a higher concentration to a lower concentration. In this case, we would expect the cell to shrink, becoming hypertonic.