What Is Osmosis Class 9

What Is Osmosis Class 9?

Osmosis is the movement of solvent from higher free energy to the lower free energy which is separated by a semi-permeable membrane. It occurs only in a liquid medium. Particles may only go in one specific direction at a time. For example: In dehydration, body cells lose water to the extracellular fluid.

Wilhelm Pfeffer, a German plant physiologist, was the first person to conduct an in-depth study of the process in 1877. The process is significant in biology. Earlier scientists investigated leaky membranes (including animal tanks) and the flow of water and releasing chemicals, but not as precisely. Thomas Graham, a British chemist, coined the term “osmose,” which is now more often known as “osmosis,” in the year 1854. 

If a mixture is placed behind a semipermeable only the pure solvent gets through but not the solute, the solution is more likely to become diluted due to the membrane’s capacity to absorb more solvent. This cycle can be halted by applying a greater amount of pressure to the solution, which is already being applied at the current level. The term “osmotic pressure” refers to this kind of pressure.

In 1886, Jacobus van’t Hoff, a Dutch scientist, showed that osmotic pressure fluctuates with concentration and temperature in a way similar to if the solute were a gas filling the same volume, provided that the solute is sufficiently dilute that the partial vapour pressure of it above the solution is obeying Henry’s law.