Egg Diffusion Lab

In this lab, we put two vinegar-soaked eggs into corn syrup and deionized water. We measured the circumference and mass of each egg before and after putting the eggs into the water and corn syrup.The egg in deionized water shrunk less than one gram. The egg in deionized water shrank to over less than half its original size. The average of the change in mass was 1.8%, showing that the egg's mass slightly increased. This shows that more water diffused inside the cell, having more solute. The average of the egg's circumference was 4.3% showing it also slightly increased in size. For the egg in corn syrup, the average change in mass was -47.25% showing that the egg almost shrank to half its normal size. The circumference decreased by -22.94%, showing that there was a bit of empty space inside the egg's membrane. This shows that the sugar water has less solute that the egg, so the solutes had diffuse out of the cell, making the egg smaller. The corn syrup was a hypertonic solution, while the deionized water was a hypotonic solution. When we put the egg in vinegar, the vinegar dissolved the shell, then started to act as a hypotonic solution because of the water inside the vinegar.This caused the egg to expand a bit. When we put the egg into water, the egg  stayed at about the same size. When one of the eggs was put into corn syrup, the egg shriveled because solute was being diffused out of the egg membrane from high concentration to low concentration. 

In class, we learned about passive diffusion and how diffusion goes from high to low. In real life, we cannot drink salt water. This is because the salt inside the water would take the water from our body, and make us even more thirsty or even dehydrated. In markets, vegetables are sprinkled with water so they stay looking fresh and big, so they won't look small and shriveled up. In the future, I would want to test what would happen if I replaced the egg with a tomato. Would the same things happen to the tomato?

Group #	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	AVG
(DI Water) % Change in Mass	N/A	N/A	0.74%	0.37%	0.45%	N/A	6.95%	1.80%
(DI Water) % Change in Circumference	N/A	N/A	1.20%	1.70%	0%	N/A	14.37%	4.30%
(Sugar Water) % Change in Mass	-46.70%	-52.80%	-52.60%	-49.70%	-41.75%	-39.58%	-47.70%	-47.25%
(Sugar Water) % Change in Circumference	-22.40%	-18.75%	-26.30%	-26.60%	-32.35%	-21.21%	-13%	-22.94%