Gas diffusion, as a basis for complex biological processes such as respiration, is a core principle for understanding fundamental physiology. Students, however, often find these concepts challenging, in particular when expressed formally as in Fick’s law of gas diffusion:
In this version, m/t describes the oxygen flux (i.e., the amount [m] of oxygen, moving in a given time [t] from one compartment of a system to another, e.g., from surrounding water to the blood of a fish). D, the diffusion constant, expresses how “easily” the gas passes a material layer. S is the surface area over which diffusion takes place, and which separates compartments (e.g., gill or body surface). And ΔC/x describes the concentration gradient between the two compartments, such as “blood” and “water,” as the difference …
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Vol. 76 No. 4, April 2014
