Question

A classic example of osmosis in the classroom involves placing an egg in water or syrup. The egg first sits in vinegar until the shell is dissolved. Then, it is placed in a glass of either tap water or syrup. The mass of the egg is measured. The results are in the chart below. Use what you know about osmosis to explain why the egg increased in mass in the distilled water but decreased in mass in the corn syrup.

Answer 1

Water is hypotonic compared to the inside of the egg; there are more solutes in the egg than in the water. Because water moves down its concentration gradient, it moves from the distilled water into the egg. It will continue to move in this direction until there is an equilibrium between the inside of the egg and the surrounding water. This increases the mass of the egg.

Corn syrup is hypertonic to the inside of the egg. Again, water moves down its concentration gradient from the inside of the egg to the solution. This will decrease the mass of the egg.

The reason solutes do not move, instead of water, in these situations is because the egg shell (assuming it is like a chicken egg) does not allow solutes to pass though it. Only water is able to move through the shell.

Step-by-step explanation: