Americans spend up to $100 billion annually for bottled water (41 billion gallons). The only beverages with higher sales are carbonated soft drinks. Recent news stories have highlighted the fact that most bottled water comes from municipal water supplies (the same source as your tap water), although it may undergo an extra purification step called reverse osmosis.
Imagine two tanks that are separated by a membrane that is permeable to water, but not to the dissolved minerals present in the water. Tank A contains tap water and tank B contains the purified water. In the reverse osmosis process, pressure is applied to the tap water tank to force the water molecules across the membrane into the pure water tank.
-After the reverse osmosis system has been operating for 30 minutes, the solution in tank A would
A) be hypotonic to tank B.
B) be isotonic to tank B.
C) be hypertonic to tank B.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Reverse osmosis removes minerals and impurities, making the water in tank B more pure than the water in tank A. This means that tank A is hypertonic (has a higher concentration of dissolved minerals) compared to tank B, which is why water molecules move from tank A to tank B during the reverse osmosis process.

Americans Spend Up to $100 Billion Annually for Bottled Water