DIffusion and Osmosis In Our Daily Life

Continuing from my previous post, now it is the diffusion and osmosis in our daily life. Diffusion can be found everywhere in our daily life. For example, in the respiratory system, when we inhale oxygen it enters the nose and into the trachea, bronchi, bronchioles, and end up in the alveoli where the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide occurs. The oxygen is needs to be transferred to the blood stream, this is where diffusion happens. When we inhale, the alveoli will have more oxygen than the blood stream meaning that the alveoli has a higher concentration of oxygen than the blood stream so diffusion occurs and transfer the oxygen from the alveoli to the blood stream. This is one of the important roles of diffusion.

Another example is in the taking in of carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen in plants. First, the air will certainly have more carbon dioxide than what the leaves have, causing the air to have a higher concentration of carbon dioxide than the plants. In this occasion diffusion occurs from the air to the plants. Then through the process of photosynthesis plants produce starch and oxygen. When plants produce oxygen, they will have a higher concentration of oxygen than the air causing diffusion to happen again. Diffusion plays an important role because without diffusion carbon dioxide can’t enter the plants and photosynthesis will not happen which will also impact every other living things because there will be too much carbon dioxide and too little oxygen.

Another reason why diffusion is really important is because without diffusion we cannot smell things. For example, air freshener, when we spray it from the end of a room we can still smell it even at the other end of the room this happens because diffusion occurs from the high concentration which is the place you spray the air freshener to low concentration which is the other end. We can also smell different kind of smell because it diffuses through gas and the smell gets into our nose.

 Osmosis also happens in our daily life. For example the soil needs to be watered to grow plants. When we water the soil, it becomes a hypotonic solution and causing the osmosis to happen from the soil to the root of the plants. Without osmosis, the plants can’t get enough water and can’t do photosynthesis and will eventually die. And we all know plants are really important to sufficient our oxygen supply. Another example of the importance of osmosis is in the digestive system. 

Osmosis plays an important role in nutrition absorption in the digestive system especially in the small and large intestine. Once the food is broken down, in the small intestine there are finger-like projections called villi which absorbs the nutrients by diffusion and osmosis. Then the food mix will go to the large intestine where the water will be absorbed. The water moves from the mixture into the blood vessels surrounding it through osmosis. Without osmosis, we wouldn’t have enough water to sufficient our needs and activities.

That's all for this post. Hope it is useful and have a good day.