You are stranded on an island in the middle of Pacific Ocean. You are extremely thirsty and the water supply ran out. In terms of osmosis, why you should you never drink the salty sea water?
1 Answer
Oct 24, 2015
The salt water is more concentrated so it will cause harm to our cody cells.
Explanation:
When a highly concentrated solution and a less concentrated solution is seperated by a semipermeable membrane, water flow from the low concentration to the high concentration solution.This is called osmosis.
The sea water is far more concentrated than our body cells. So if one drinks sea water, his cells will rapidly lose water as our body cell is also a semipermeable membrane and as a result it allow water to go out of the cells. This will cause dehydration and the cells will shrink.
This photo will help to explain this.
