HIGHER PERMEABILITY FOR WATER THAN FOR ETHYL ALCOHOL IN NITELLA

If we apply water at one end of a Nitella cell, A, and place at the other end, B, a solution of a substance which does not penetrate, such as sucrose, water enters the cell at A, passes along inside the cell, and escapes at B. But if in place of sucrose we use a substance which penetrates such as ethyl alcohol the flow of water is lessened and this fact makes it possible to measure the amount of alcohol which enters. (An increase in the size of cells placed in solutions of alcohol does not necessarily indicate that the number of mols of alcohol entering is greater than the number of mols of water leaving the cell.) The permeability for water is more than 18 times as great as for ethyl alcohol. The behavior of the 2 substances was compared in the same individual cell with a driving force which at the start was the same for both substances. The number of mols entering per second per cm.(2) of surface with a driving force of 1 atmosphere at 25°C. is 0.772 (10(–6)) for water and 0.042 (10(–6)) for ethyl alcohol. The experiments indicate that the non-aqueous substance at the surface of the protoplasm has a higher partition coefficient for water than for ethyl alcohol, although the protoplasmic surface is composed of materials not miscible with water.