An Investigation to Find the Effect of Sugar Concentration on Osmosis in Potato Chips

An Investigation to Find the Effect of Sugar Concentration on Osmosis in Potato Chips

Introduction:

Osmosis is the passage of water molecules from an area of high

concentration to an area of low concentration through a partially

permeable membrane. In this case, Osmosis applied to the practical

because the aim was to see if a sugared solution had an effect on

osmosis in potato chips, it was intended to find out if different

concentrations of sucrose solution caused a selectively permeable

membrane, or a potato chip, to become larger or smaller. It was

planned to use six different concentrations of sucrose solution and

for each concentration; three sets of results were taken. The change

of weight for each result was then found and finally, the average

weight change was found.

Prediction:

It was predicted that the higher the sugar concentration, water would

transfer from the potato into the sugared solution making the potato

decrease in weight, and vice versa for the lower sugar concentrations.

It was believed this would happen because since the solution was

diluted with water, the water molecules will transfer over to the

stronger solution. Thus materializing osmosis.

Fair test:

To create a fair test certain aspects of the experiment were kept the

same whilst one key variable was changed. It was chosen to vary the

concentration of the sucrose solution. For the purpose of the

experiment, all experiments were carried out at the same time so the

temperature was kept almost the same throughout. The mass of the

potato was a dependent variable. This means that it was measured

throughout the experiment. The mass was measured in grams. The potato

chip was measured before it was put in the solution, and after it was

taken out. This allowed it to be seen whether osmosis had taken place,

and to what extent. It was essential that the volume of the solution

that the potato chips were kept in must be the same. The potato chip

was made sure to be totally covered in the solution, and the amount of