Question

An animal cell has a 2% salt concentration. It is placed into a solution with a 0.05% salt concentration. What would happen to the animal cell?

Answer 1

Water will move into and out of the cell at the same rate, causing it to remain the same size.

Step-by-step explanation:

Answer 2

The animal cell would burst due to osmosis.

Osmosis refers to the flow of water from the region of high solute concentration to the region of low solute concentration across the semi-permeable membrane.

An animal cell is hypertonic (more salt concentration: 2%) as compared to the external solution which is termed as hypotonic or low salt concentration (0.05%).

So, the water potential of the external solution would be higher as compared to that of the cell.

Hence, the water will flow into the cell which will cause the cell to swell and then burst (due to absence of cell wall)