Page 12 - LN-cH-11

The phenomenon of imbibition is also influenced by several factors like temperature
(increases with rise in temperature), pressure (decreases if pressure is against
imbibant), pH (depends on change of imbibant) electrolytes (decreases) and texture
of imbibant (increases if it is loose, decreases if it is compact in nature).
Importance of Imbibition
Imbibition plays following major roles
(i) Helps seedlings to come out of soil.
(ii) Acts at the initial stage in germination of the seeds.
(iii) Helps of seeds.
(iv) In older times, the imbibition pressure was used in breaking the rocks and
stones.
(v) It is dominant in the initial stage of water absorption by roots.
Differences between Imbibition and Diffusion Imbibition Diffusion

Note:
Adsorption is property of colloids. Hence, material which have high proportion of
colloids are good imbibants. eg., wood, is good imbibant as it contains proteins,
cellulose and starch as colloidal substances.

Topic 2 Long Distance Transport of Water

Long distance transport of substances cannot take place by the process of diffusion
alone. Diffusion accounts for only those molecules that move for
short distance and it is a very slow process. For instance, the movement of a
molecule across a typical plant cell (about 50 pm) takes approximately 2.5 second.
At this rate, the movement of molecules over a distance of 1 m would take