In: Biology
Make the assumption that a cell has a 10% salt concentration inside its cytoplasm. What factors do you think would influence the rate of diffusion?
A cell having 10% salt concentration in the cytoplasm indicates that the concentration in the cell is higher than the surrounding fluid. Diffusion is the process of movement of molecules from a region of higher concentration to lower concentration. In the given case provided, two scenarios can be observed, one that the surrounding fluid has less salt concentration and the other the surrounding fluid has higher concentration than the cell cytoplasm.
In the first case, the movement of the molecules take place from the cell to the outside of the cell. The water moves into the cell and the cell becomes turgid.
In the second case, the opposite may happen because the surrounding fluid has more salt concentration and the water will moves outside the cell from the inside. Thus, the cell shrinks.
Therefore, the tonicity of the cell is a factor that may affect the diffusion rate. Some other factors that affect the rate of diffusion are temperature, density, concentration gradient, and medium of diffusion.