Five popular misconceptions about osmosis

Abstract

Osmosis is the flow of solvent across a semipermeable membrane from a region of lower to higher solute concentration. It is of central importance in plant and animal physiology and finds many uses in industry. A survey of published papers, web resources, and current textbooks reveals that numerous misconceptions about osmosis continue to be cited and taught. To clarify these issues, we re-derive the thermodynamics of osmosis using the canonical formalism of statistical mechanics and go on to discuss the main points that continue to lead to misunderstandings.