Egg Lab Write - Up

Maya Skoczylas

Hypothesis: If an egg is placed in a hypotonic solution, then it will expand; if the egg is placed in
a hypertonic solution, it will shrink; proving osmosis through the semipermeable membrane.

Conclusion:
After the egg was placed in the vinegar, osmosis occurred when the water moved into the
egg. This is because the vinegar is a hypotonic solution, meaning that it has a higher
concentration of water than the egg. Since it is hypotonic, and diffusion wants to occur from
higher to lower concentration, the egg absorbs the water through osmosis. This can be proven
because the mass swelled by 46.6%,
from 61.6 grams to 90.3 grams. Another
example of evidence is when the volume
remaining in the beaker went down by 30
mL, from 200 mL to 170 mL. As you can
see in the picture for day 3, the egg also
seems to look larger than it did in day 1.
After the egg was placed in the karo
syrup, the egg shrunk from the water
molecules exiting the cell. The syrup is a
hypertonic solution, so the high
concentration of water inside the egg
diffused to the low water concentration of
the syrup. This caused the eggs mass to
shrink from 90.3 grams to 52.6 grams.
And since water left the egg to try and
make the solutions isotonic, meaning both
the egg and the liquid it is in to have the
same concentration, the volume
remaining in the beaker increased by
20mL, or 20%, an increase from 200 mL
to 220 mL. Because the syrup did not
absorb the water, you can physically see
a layer of the water above the syrup in the
day 4 picture, as marked by the arrow. Since so much water left the egg, the egg shriveled up
and looked slightly flattened.
When the egg was placed in distilled water after being removed from the syrup, the water
moved back into the egg through the semipermeable membrane. This is because the water
was hypotonic and the high concentration of the water went into the egg to make equilibrium
between the egg and the water through concentration. The egg’s mass went from 52.7 grams
to 95.2 grams, a whopping 80.65% increase. The volume of the water remaining went down by
48 mL, from 200 mL to 152 mL. This shows osmosis because the water traveled through and
into the semipermeable membrane to both increase the egg’s mass and decrease the water
remaining as it diffused into the egg.

My hypothesis was validated because the egg swelled and shrank with the changing solutions
it was in to maintain equilibrium between the two concentrations. This meant that water had to
travel through the semipermeable membrane to keep the liquid the egg was in as isotonic.