Question

Two dialysis tube was filled with sodium polyacrylate and was left in a test tube filled with water for 2 hours. one had a fan being blown on it.

1. Was the water volume in the test tubes more or less after the two-hour period than it was at the beginning of the experiment? If there was a difference in either of the test tubes, what caused this change? There was less in both tubes.

2. Did this amount vary between the test tube with the fan blowing on it and the test tube without the fan? If there was a difference, what caused this change?

3. What does the sodium polyacrylate represent in real plants?

4. What process caused the sodium polyacrylate-filled dialysis tubing to become filled with water?

5. Explain how water potential plays a part in transpiration. Draw a diagram of the path water takes in this experiment.

6. How does the fan affect the volume of water left in the beaker after one hour?

7. Describe the ways in which plants can adapt to water supply and environmental factors (both structural and physiological).

8. Investigate an experiment that enables the calculation of transpiration rate. Explain this process.

Answer 1

1. Dialysis tube is an artificial semi-permeable membrane tube used in separation techniques, that facilitates the flow of tiny molecules in solution based on diffusion.

the water volume in the test tubes will become more after the two-hour period than it was at the beginning of the experiment because water molecules will flow from the test tube into the dialysis tube through its semi-permeable membrane by the process called as osmosis.

Maybe the test tube that was under continuous fanning had more water in it as diffusion of water molecules would have increased under the continuous flow of air and the other test tube would have less water because here the diffusion speed of water molecules was less than the first test tube which had continuous fanning over it.

2. A continuous flow of air above one test tube caused more diffusion of water into that test tube as compared to another test tube which had no air flow above it.

3. Sodium polyacrylate, also known as waterlock, is a sodium salt of polyacrylic acid.  This superabsorbent polymer has the ability to absorb as much as 100 to 1000 times its mass in water. For Plants Agricultural grade sodium polyacrylate can absorb water when it is rain and turn to water gel.

4. Osmosis

5. Water potential can be described as a measure of how freely water molecules can move in a particular environment or system. The driving force for transpiration is the difference in water potential between the soil and the atmosphere surrounding the plant. This difference creates a gradient, forcing water to move toward areas with less water.