Osmotic pressure

Osmotic pressure is the minimum pressure which needs to be applied to a solution to prevent the inward flow of its pure solvent across a semipermeable membrane. It is also defined as the measure of the tendency of a written to clear believe in a pure solvent by osmosis. Potential osmotic pressure is the maximum osmotic pressure that could imposing in a a thing that is said if it were separated from its pure solvent by a semipermeable membrane.

Osmosis occurs when two solutions containing different concentrations of solute are separated by a selectively permeable membrane. Solvent molecules pass preferentially through the membrane from the low-concentration solution to the solution with higher solute concentration. The transfer of solvent molecules will stay on until equilibrium is attained.

Applications

Osmotic pressure measurement may be used for the determination of molecular weights.

Osmotic pressure is an important component affecting biological cells. Osmoregulation is the homeostasis mechanism of an organism tobalance in osmotic pressure.

When a biological cell is in a hypotonic environment, the cell interior accumulates water, water flows across the cell membrane into the cell, causing it to expand. In plant cells, the cell wall restricts the expansion, resulting in pressure on the cell wall from within called turgor pressure. Turgor pressure allowed herbaceous plants to stand upright. it is also the determining element for how plants regulate the aperture of their stomata. In animal cells excessive osmotic pressure can result in cytolysis.

Osmotic pressure is the basis of filtering "reverse osmosis", a process commonly used in water purification. The water to be purified is placed in a chamber & increase under an amount of pressure greater than the osmotic pressure exerted by the water & the solutes dissolved in it. Part of the chamber opens to a differentially permeable membrane that authorises water molecules through, but non the solute particles. The osmotic pressure of ocean water is about 27 atm. Reverse osmosis desalinates fresh water from ocean salt water.