In conclusion, when the concentration of grape juice increased, the average percentage change in the mass of the potato cylinders decreased. The increased concentration of grape juice means that there are more glucose molecules and, hence, the solution had a lower water concentration. There were more water molecules in the potatoes, thus diffusing into the water, against the concentration gradient in order to reach equilibrium. The water being lost decreased the mass of the potato cylinders. For example, in my raw data, concentration of grape juice solution of 40%, the initial weight of the potato was 6.00g however, after 15mins the weight of the potato decreased to 5.63g henceforth, the potato lost 0.37g.
My qualitative data showed that the potatoes began floating
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Which is why I believe I found that most of the points on my graph were spread over a wide range. Also, the experiment required more than one piece of potato and each potato might have had more water in it or less thus affecting the mass of potato. My partner and I also had used different potatoes one can deduce that these potatoes were of different qualities. Not to mention, another factor which played a big role in affecting the outcome of my results was that the grape juice when placing it into the test tube might have not been distributed equally around the potato cylinder as I found it to be sticky and would take time to slide down when touching the test tube. So, each potato cylinders may have contained different amount of sugar thus affecting the rate of osmosis. Also, when time elapsed and we came to take the potato out of the test tube it took time as we had variety of trials therefore increasing unreliability of results since some potatoes remained in the test tube and exceeded the time in which it had to stay