What is the relationship between osmolarity and water potential energy?
As osmolarity of a solution (i.e. concentration of solute particles) increases, the water potential energy decreases. WHY? Water molecules move from regions of high water potential energy to regions of lower water potential energy. This means that water moves from regions of low concentration of solute particles (high water potential energy) to regions of high concentration of solute particles (low water potential energy). In high school, you learned that “as concentration of solute particles increases, the concentration of water molecules per unit volume of solution decreases and vice versa. Thus, water moves from regions of high water concentration to regions of low water concentration” From now on, relate the movement of water to the gradient of water potential energy between regions. Explaining the movement of water as a function of only the gradient of solute particle concentration or water concentration can be misleading in the long run because you will assume automatically that
