What happens....?

Question

when animal cells are placed in saltwater

Answer 1

Since the saltwater has a higher concentration of salt than the cytoplasm of the cell, which is more "watery", water will diffuse from the cell to its surroundings, causing the cell to shrink.

Answer 2

The basic answer to this question is that the cell would shrink.

If the saltwater has a lower concentration of water than the cell has (about 97% in most land animal cells) then more water will go out of the cell than the amount of water that goes in.

This is bad for the cell, and if it doesn't get rehydrated real soon, the cell will die.

Answer 3

Depends on the salt concentration of the saltwater. If it is saline solution, an animal cell would be in roughly isotonic conditions, so nothing would happen to the cell. If the salt concentration was very high, then the cell would be in a hypertonic solution and via osmosis the water in the cell would move to the hypertonic side of the membrane and the cell would shrivel up and lose most of its liquid.