Question:
A-level Bio: i dont understand water potential at all! could someone explain in simple terms?
sarah p
2009-01-14 10:05:30 UTC
i cant seem to grasp it! so the less water a cell has the more potential? but if its full then its zero...? i dont get it

also explanations for soltue and pressure potential would be great

thanks for any help
Six answers:
anonymous
2009-01-14 11:44:42 UTC
I'm doing A-level biology also so i'm in the same boat as you, I'll try to make my explanation as clear for you as possible. Firstly you'll need to know about osmosis in order to get to grips with water potential (Ψ), osmosis is a type of diffusion (in water) where the net movement of water moves from a high to a low water potential across a selectively or fully permeable membrane. In simple terms, this means that the number of water molecules try to evenly distribute each other at either side of the membrane. In order to do this, the side with the high amount of water molecules (higher water potential) will need to move to the area of lower water potential to reach equilibrium. Ψ is measured in kPA (killer pascals), 0 is the purest form of water (such as in deionized water) with pretty much no other solutes in solution. Lower water potentials (-100kPA,-200kPA) have an increasingly greater amount of solutes in solution. Sometimes I get confused with the units so I try to remember it this way, you can't have positive values with water potential so its always either negative or zero, so think the more negative a number the lower the water potential is.



I'll give a practical example, if you submerge some equally sized samples of potato into a concentrated sample of sucrose solution (A) and the rest into a sample of deionised water (B) for ten minuites or so you would see a change in mass. The potato in sample A would lose weight and the potato in sample B will gain weight, your probably wondering why this has happened so try to remember the definition for osmosis (diffusion of water) where a high water potential will always move to a lower water potential. In sample A the potato was submerged in concentrated sucrose solution that has a low water potential (not many water molecules, mostly sucrose) This water potential in the solution would be lower than that in the cell (which is also slightly negative because of the sucrose used as food in the potato) so the net movement of water will move out of the potato through its membrane into the sucrose solution and so the potato will lose weight. The opposite happens to the potatos in sample B, where the water potential in the deionised water is much higher than in the potato (almost 0) so the net movement of water will move into the potato in the hope of reaching equillibrium (which it never really does) and so the weight of the potato increases.



I hope these definitions and the practical example has helped clear up the confusion with water potential :)



Solute potential is basically the same as water potential, but it refers to the amount of solute in solution rather than the amount of water. So the net movement of solutes will always move from a low to a high solute concentration across a selectively permable membrane. Pressure potential describes the density at which molecules take up a particular amount of space, in high pressure their are alot of molecules in the same amount of space and in low pressure there are fewer molecules roaming in th same amount of space. So the net movement of these molecules will always be from a higher to a lower pressure potential.
?
2016-10-07 12:04:38 UTC
Water Potential Definition
anonymous
2009-01-14 11:12:22 UTC
A solute is any substance that is disolved in a solvent, eg water. The solute and solvent together form a solution.

Water potential is the pressure created by water molecules. Under standard conditions of temperature and pressure, pure water is said to have a water potential of 0.

I don't personally understand why water potential is always negative, but it makes sense that as the concentration of water decreases and so would the water potential, and pure water will always have the maximum water potential. If the maximum water potential wasn't zero, what else would it be, 10? 100? 1000? It would involve a lot bigger numbers! Which would be a mish! lol

Anyway the highest value of water potential is 0 and all other values are negative. The more negative the value, the lower the water potential. Think of water potential as an overdraft at a bank. The bigger the overdraft, the more negative the amount of money you have.

Water moves from an area of high water potential to an area of low water potential. eg. from an area with water potential of -100 to and area of water potential -500.
anonymous
2015-08-10 07:47:06 UTC
This Site Might Help You.



RE:

A-level Bio: i dont understand water potential at all! could someone explain in simple terms?

i cant seem to grasp it! so the less water a cell has the more potential? but if its full then its zero...? i dont get it



also explanations for soltue and pressure potential would be great



thanks for any help
JJ
2009-01-14 10:17:56 UTC
Noo. Solute is basically sugars and salts within a liquid such as water. The more solute(salt or sugar) in water, the more negative the water potential.

The more negative the water potential, the more attractive the cell becomes to water in order to icnrease the water potential again.

Pure water has a water potetial of 0, but as the solution becomes more solute, the water potential will decrease into a negative figure.



The cell can only take in a certain amount of water otherwise it will burst because of pressure on its cell membrane. It is very hard for a cell to get a water potential of zero, only distilled water is likely to have a close to zero water potential
James
2017-03-05 04:34:54 UTC
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