Thermal motion and forced migration of colloidal particles generate hydrostatic pressure in solvent.
A colloidal solution of ferrite particles in an osmometer has been used to demonstrate that the property that propels water across the semipermeable membrane is the decrease in hydrostatic pressure in the water of the solution. A magnetic field gradient directed so as to force the ferrite particles away from the semipermeable membrane of the osmometer and toward the free surface of the solution enhanced the colloidal osmotic pressure. The enhancement of this pressure was always exactly equal to the augmentation of the pressure as measured by the outward force of the particles, against the area of the free surface. Contrariwise, directing the magnetic field gradient so as to force the ferrite particles away from the free surface and toward the semipermeable membrane diminished the colloidal osmotic pressure of the solution. For a sufficiently forceful field gradient, the initial colloidal osmotic pressure could be negative, followed by an equilibrium pressure approaching zero regardless of the force of the particles against the membrane. Thus, the osmotic pressure of a solution is to be attributed to the pressure in the solvent generated in opposition to the pressure of the solute particles caused by their interaction with the free surface (Brownian motion and/or an external field force), or by their viscous shear when they migrate through the solvent, or both.
Physiological Research Laboratory, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, Calif. 92037.
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Hammel
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Scholander