MINIREVIEW
Osmosis: Membranes Impermeable and Permeable for Solutes, Mechanism of
Osmosis across Porous Membranes
K. JANÁČEK, K. SIGLER
Institute of Microbiology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague,
Czech Republic
Received September 9, 1999
Accepted November 3, 1999
Summary
A mathematical description is presented of osmotic flows
across both ideally semipermeable membranes and membranes permeable not only for
the solvent but also for the solute. The principles of thermodynamics of
irreversible processes used for the description are given and illustrated on the
example of electroosmosis. Modern ideas about the physical basis of osmotic
pressure on porous membranes are discussed and an experiment is described that
models the processes of osmosis on a macroscopic level.
Key words
Osmotic pressure ● Mechanism of osmosis ●
Solute-permeable membranes
Reprint requests
K. Janáček, Institute of Microbiology, Academy of Sciences
of the Czech Republic, Vídeňská 1083, 142 20 Prague 4, Czech Republic.
e-mail: sigler@biomed.cas.cz
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