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The process of osmosis over a semipermeable membrane.The blue dots represent particles driving the osmotic gradient. Osmosis (/ ɒ z ˈ m oʊ s ɪ s /, US also / ɒ s-/) [1] is the spontaneous net movement or diffusion of solvent molecules through a selectively-permeable membrane from a region of high water potential (region of lower solute concentration) to a region of low water potential ...
Early research in the 19th and 20th centuries on osmosis and diffusion provided the foundation for understanding the passive movement of molecules across cell membranes. [ 10 ] In 1855, the physiologist Adolf Fick was the first to define osmosis and simple diffusion as the tendency for solutes to move from a region of higher concentration to a ...
In cell biology, diffusion is a main form of transport for necessary materials such as amino acids within cells. [1] Diffusion of solvents, such as water, through a semipermeable membrane is classified as osmosis. Metabolism and respiration rely in part upon diffusion in addition to bulk or active processes.
The proteins may assist in the movement of substances by facilitated diffusion, active transport, osmosis, or reverse diffusion. The two main types of proteins involved in such transport are broadly categorized as either channels or carriers (a.k.a. transporters, or permeases).
Osmoregulation is the active regulation of the osmotic pressure of an organism's body fluids, detected by osmoreceptors, to maintain the homeostasis of the organism's water content; that is, it maintains the fluid balance and the concentration of electrolytes (salts in solution which in this case is represented by body fluid) to keep the body fluids from becoming too diluted or concentrated.
One example of passive diffusion is the gas exchange that occurs between the oxygen in the blood and the carbon dioxide present in the lungs. [3] Facilitated diffusion is the movement of polar molecules down the concentration gradient with the assistance of membrane proteins. Since the molecules associated with facilitated diffusion are polar ...
The concept of diffusion is widely used in many fields, including physics (particle diffusion), chemistry, biology, sociology, economics, statistics, data science, and finance (diffusion of people, ideas, data and price values). The central idea of diffusion, however, is common to all of these: a substance or collection undergoing diffusion ...
Multicomponent diffusion is diffusion in mixtures, and diffusiophoresis is the special case where we are interested in the movement of one species that is usually a colloidal particle, in a gradient of a much smaller species, such as dissolved salt such as sodium chloride in water. or a miscible liquid, such as ethanol in water.