A laboratory assistant prepared solutions of 0.8 M, 0.6 M, 0.4 M, and 0.2 M sucrose, but forgot to label them.

A laboratory assistant prepared solutions of 0.8 M, 0.6 M, 0.4 M, and 0.2 M sucrose, but forgot to label them. After realizing the error, the assistant randomly labeled the flasks containing these four unknown solutions as flask A, flask B, flask C, and flask D.

Design an experiment, based on the principles of diffusion and osmosis, that the assistant could use to determine which of the flasks contains each of the four unknown solutions.Include in your answer

Tags: assistant, forgot, label, laboratory, prepared, solutions, sucrose, them

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3 Comments for A laboratory assistant prepared solutions of 0.8 M, 0.6 M, 0.4 M, and 0.2 M sucrose, but forgot to label them.

1. Melissa P | February 15th, 2011 at 8:37 am

Personally, I would just re-make the solutions. It would take less time.
2. also known as "aka" | February 15th, 2011 at 8:41 am

you could put a snall amount of each of the different solutions in dialysis tubes which are impermeable for sucrose. Then you place the filled tubes into the different solutions.
Lets say you put solution from flask A into a dialysis tube and then put this into flask B. If the tube swells it means it took up water from soulution B and that means that A has a higher osmolarity and therefore molarity of sucrose. This way you can test different solutions against each other and find out the order in which the osmolarity increases.
3. emp | February 15th, 2011 at 9:27 am

I agree with Mel on this one.
But you could taste them as they are simply sugar water cocktails.

Does defeat the purpose of the homework question on diffusion (you aren’t fooling anyone here).

Now for the homework…..Get four balloons and fill them with equal amounts of water. Place the balloons into the solutions. After like….4 days or so take the balloons out and look at which are smaller than the others. The smallest one is the highest concentration as water can more easily diffuse out of the balloon than sugar in and therefore osmosis occurs as equilibrium is trying to happen.

NOW MAKE SURE THIS IS ALSO IN YOUR ANSWER!!!!!!
After determining by this method, you realize that your molar solutions now have too much water in them and so your concentration labels are incorrect anyways and you don’t truly know the new concentrations. Your boss is very upset that you wasted a week’s worth of time when sugar is dirt cheap…cheaper than your hourly rate. You are then fired and must look for a new job….all because you messed up and attempted to hide the mistake instead of informing your boss.

A laboratory assistant prepared solutions of 0.8 M, 0.6 M, 0.4 M, and 0.2 M sucrose, but forgot to label them.

3 Comments for A laboratory assistant prepared solutions of 0.8 M, 0.6 M, 0.4 M, and 0.2 M sucrose, but forgot to label them.

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