Explain how osmosis will affect animal cells when the cells are placed into and environment with a low water potential compared to the intracellular water potential

Explanation:

The cytoplasm in animal cells is surrounded by a membrane, which delimits the cell and its surroundings. As opposite from the plant cells, animal cells do not have a cell wall.

Osmosis is the process in which a solvent diffuses across a semipermeable membrane (like the cell membrane) from the zone with the lower concentration of solutes to the zone with the higher concentration. That means that water, in this case, will diffuse spontaneously across the cell membrane from the place with more water molecules (usually, the exterior of the cell) to the place which has less water molecules, or is more concentrated (in this case, the cytoplasm). This diffusion will continue until an equilibrium is reached.

If we place an animal cell, which does not have a cell wall, into an environment with a low water potential, the water will flow from the exterior to the interior. If the water potential is very low compared to the one of the cytoplasm, the cell can receive too much water and explode. This process is called cytolysis.