Can somebody explain osmosis to me please?
Osmosis is the movement of water from high concentration to low concentration. Solute means some sort of dissolved substance that is “osmotically active”. In the ideal situation, there are two compartments separated by a membrane (barrier) only permeable to water. So if one side has a higher solute concentration and say it is salt in water, the water on one side is saltier than the other. Water will move through the membrane from the less salty side to the more salty side until they have the same concentration of salt on each side (the water moving will lower the salt concentration on the salty side, and raise it on the less salty side). In doing this, there will be more water on what was the more salty side, because it has physically moved there from the less salty side.
The membrane used in osmosis is essentially a very, very fine strainer. You’ll have a situation such as salt water on one side of the membrane, and fresh water on the other. The freshwater will try to dilute the salt water until the salt water side is roughly the same concentration as the freshwater. Here’s what happens. The water molecules are small enough to pass through the pores in the membrane. The salts, solids, etc., are not. On the freshwater side, there is nothing for the water molecules to bounce off of except the walls of the container and the membrane. Some of these molecules strike the membrane and pass through the pores. On the salt water side, there are impurities for the water to bounce off of. Because there is more for the water molecules to strike, they have to travel a longer distance on average before they can strike that membrane again. The more concentrated you make the salt water side, the more impurities there are for the water molecules to strike, which makes t
