Which would keep vegetables more crisp-tap water or distilled water? Explain in terms of permeability please?
Distilled water. The answer lies with hypertonic and hypotonic solutions. Tap water, which isn’t filtered, contains many dissolved solids. Distilled water, on the other hand, is plainly water. Plants are more crisp when they contain more water (this makes their cells rigid and stiff, which helps the plant stand tall and retain its shape). Tap water and distilled water are both likely to be hypotonic solutions to the plant cells. Hypotonic means that the solution has more free water molecules than the cell, and less dissolved solutes as the cell. So, water would move INTO the cell to balance the concentration gradients of water and dissolved particles. However, since tap water has more solutes than distilled water, less water is going to diffuse into the plant from the tap water than from the distilled water.
