osmotic pressure

I must have been feeling “osmotic pressure” since I missed posting for the last month. We all know that that excuse is as lame as learning by osmosis from a book under your pillow. Now, let’s review osmotic pressure. Osmotic pressure is the minimum pressure required to stop solvent from flowing through a membrane into …. Read More

OSMOSIS

One must fully understand the history to appreciate today’s textbook thermodynamic theory of osmosis.

Nobel Lecture by Jacobus H. van’t Hoff

van’t Hoff Nobel prize for his work with osmotic pressure. The theory of Osmosis is not the theory of osmotic pressure.. See Atkins applied pressure to a vessel of water raises the vapor pressure..

Cell behavior in hypotonic / hypertonic solutions.

Our efforts to apply the vapor pressure theory of osmosis to medical physiology have been difficult. The difficulty appears to be due to language differences. Therefore, we’re going to look at a very simple example from a popular medical text. A cell is placed into pure water. The osmolality of pure water is much …. Read More

Osmosis in living organisms

Osmosis is the mechanism for transferring fluids and nutrients across membranes. It occurs in plants and animals and maintains the proper balance between extracellular and intracellular fluids. Although osmotic pressure is measured in the laboratory and has been referred to as a driving force for osmosis Osmotic pressure only occurs in laboratory experiments and calculations. …. Read More