Although the investigations on which I am about to speak were carried out
15 years past, I am going to begin by describing still earlier studies - those
which, in fact, formed the basis of my own. These studies absorb the experimental
determination of osmotic crush.
What is osmotic press? When a solution, e.g. of lolly in irrigate, is
separated from the pure solvent - in this display case water - by a membrane which
allows water solely not shekels to pass through it, then water forces its way
through the membrane into the solution. This process naturally results in
greater pressure on that side of the membrane to which the water is penetrating,
i.e. to the solution side.
This pressure is osmotic pressure.
It is thanks to this osmotic pressure that the sap of the oak-tree rises to the
uppermost twigs. This pressure was known to exist as long ago as the beginning
of the 19th century, but it is only somewhat much than 20 years ago since
this phenomenon has been the subject of precise measurements. It was the
plant scientist Pfeffer who first measured this pressure in 1877 by reservation a
membrane which satisfied the following three conditions: It was permeable
to water, impermeable to sugar, and it withstood the by no means negligible
pressure to which it was subjected.
Osmotic forces are in fact unexpectedly great: with a 1% sugar solution
they are equal to no less than 2/3 atm.
Thus, Pfeffer measured osmotic pressure but he was uneffective to find the
relation between the value of this pressure and the slow-wittedness of the solution,
its temperature, etc. He put this paradox to the celebrated physicist
Clausius in Bonn, but he, too, failed to discover any regular interrelations.
Pfeffers results thus remained in a specialized botanical paper, thus escaping
the acknowledge of scientists in other fields.
The importance of a solution of this problem becomes clear when one remembers the vital role played by osmotic pressure in plant and animal life.
The membranes of the...If you exigency to get a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay
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