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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 ...
Water can enter the cell by diffusion through the cell membrane or through selective membrane channels called aquaporins, which greatly facilitate the flow of water. [1] It occurs in a hypotonic environment, where water moves into the cell by osmosis and causes its volume to increase to the point where the volume exceeds the membrane's capacity ...
The crab-eating frog, or Rana cancrivora, is an example of a vertebrate osmoconformer. The crab-eating frog also regulates its rates of urea retention and excretion, which allows them to survive and maintain their status as osmoconformers in a wide range of external salinities. [ 3 ]
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.
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.
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 ...
If there is a change in the potential energy of a system; for example μ 1 >μ 2 (μ is Chemical potential) an energy flow will occur from S 1 to S 2, because nature always prefers low energy and maximum entropy. Molecular diffusion is typically described mathematically using Fick's laws of diffusion.
Transcellular transport often involves energy expenditure whereas paracellular transport is unmediated and passive down a concentration gradient, [4] or by osmosis (for water) and solvent drag for solutes. [5] Paracellular transport also has the benefit that absorption rate is matched to load because it has no transporters that can be saturated.