Osmosis, colligative properties, entropy, free energy and the chemical potential

TL;DR

This paper introduces a diffusive model of osmosis that explains experimental data, predicts new phenomena, and offers a kinetic understanding of colligative properties and chemical potential, contrasting with traditional convective models.

Contribution

It presents a novel diffusive model of osmosis that accounts for experimental observations and provides a kinetic explanation of colligative properties and chemical potential.

Findings

The diffusive model explains experimental data on osmosis.

It predicts phenomena that differ from traditional models, some confirmed experimentally.

Provides a kinetic basis for Raoult's law and colligative properties.

Abstract

A diffusive model of osmosis is presented that explains currently available experimental data. It makes predictions that distinguish it from the traditional convective flow model of osmosis, some of which have already been confirmed experimentally and others have yet to be tested. It also provides a simple kinetic explanation of Raoult's law and the colligative properties of dilute aqueous solutions. The diffusive model explains that when a water molecule jumps from low to high osmolarity at equilibrium, the free energy change is zero because the work done pressurizing the water molecule is balanced by the entropy of mixing. It also explains that equal chemical potentials are required for particle exchange equilibrium in analogy with the familiar requirement of equal temperatures at thermal equilibrium.