How does ten percent salt water effect a cell containing ninety seven percent water?

Answer 1

Anytime there is a semipermeable membrane and water with dissolved ions on both sides of the membrane you have a situation where osmosis can occur. If the solutions on each side of the membrane are equal in concentration it is said they are "isotonic" and no net movement of water will occur. If the two solutions are not equal in concentration, then one is hypertonic (more dissolved solutes) and the other is hypotonic (fewer dissolved solutes). In the case of the 10% salt solution, that is hypertonic relative to the cell. Water will move towards the hypertonic side, so water will move out of the cell and into the salt water--in other words, the cell will shrivel up (and possibly die). If instead you put the cell in distilled water, then water would rush into the cell (since it is hypertonic relative to distilled water). In that case the cell would swell up and burst.

Isotonic saline solution is 0.85% or 0.9%--not quite 1% salt. They give isotonic saline intravenously when a person is dehydrated.

Hope that helps.

~Kevin

Answer 2

it would burst