
Originally Posted by
Roddilla
When you have a inverted thistle funnel with a semi-permeable membrane around it and you place a 2M solution in it and you place the thistle funnel with solution in a container of pure solvent, why does water stop moving upwards rather than continue moving upwards? I know it has to do with osmotic pressure but I cannot understand how.
Could it be that as water moves in pressure of liquid due to gravity (hdg) increases at at 1 point the pressure is just enough to stop osmosis.
Let's put it like that. When you just put the inverted funnel (like in the picture of your previous thread), at the level of the membrane, you have osmotic pressure + liquid pressure.
These are enough to push the weight of the solution column in the funnel up. Then, there is a point where the weight of the solution column equals the pressure of the liquid + osmotic pressure.
And strictly speaking, I would say that osmosis does not stop. Particles in the fluid state are in constant motion, and hence, the solvent is constantly moving through the membrane in both directions.
And one more question. The more concentrated a solution is the higher its osmotic pressure, right and we say that water moves from low to high osmotic pressure?
Yes, since the region of high osmotic pressure is the region where there is the least number of water molecules (also meaning the most number of solute).
If you have a container with a semi-permeable membrane around it and pure water in it and you place this container in a concentrated solution, osmosis stops when all water moves out of the small container right?
That's exactly the state that a biologist would call 'crenation' in a cell.
If we say that osmotic pressure is the pressure that must be applied to a solution to prevent osmosis, why do we use the equation of pressure PV = nRT with n being moles of solute and V = volume of solution?
I don't really understand your question here. I have the feeling you're asking why

to get the energy that a certain amount of mass represent, while the answer is simply that this equation works. :confused:
If you want the full derivation, wiki has an article for it, though it might be too complicated of a derivation:
Osmotic pressure - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Why do we give osmotic pressure a negative sign in biology but a positive sign in chemistry? Could it be that in biology we refer to the solution while in chemistry w refer o the pressure which must be applied to that solution.
I wasn't aware that pressure can be negative too :confused: (without any comparison between two pressures acting in opposite directions that is)