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The molecular mass (for molecular compounds) and formula mass (for non-molecular compounds, such as ionic salts) are commonly used as synonyms of molar mass, differing only in units (daltons vs g/mol); however, the most authoritative sources define it differently. The difference is that molecular mass is the mass of one specific particle or ...
The definition of molecular weight is most authoritatively synonymous with relative molecular mass; however, in common practice, use of this terminology is highly variable. When the molecular weight is given with the unit Da, it is frequently as a weighted average similar to the molar mass but with different units.
The molar mass constant, usually denoted by M u, is a physical constant defined as one twelfth of the molar mass of carbon-12: M u = M(12 C)/12. [1] The molar mass of an element or compound is its relative atomic mass (atomic weight) or relative molecular mass (molecular weight or formula weight) multiplied by the molar mass constant.
Because a dalton, a unit commonly used to measure atomic mass, is exactly 1/12 of the mass of a carbon-12 atom, this definition of the mole entailed that the mass of one mole of a compound or element in grams was numerically equal to the average mass of one molecule or atom of the substance in daltons, and that the number of daltons in a gram ...
In 1803 John Dalton proposed to use the (still unknown) atomic mass of the lightest atom, hydrogen, as the natural unit of atomic mass. This was the basis of the atomic weight scale. [12] For technical reasons, in 1898, chemist Wilhelm Ostwald and others proposed to redefine the unit of atomic mass as 1 / 16 the mass of an oxygen atom. [13]
Thus, the atomic mass of a carbon-12 atom is 12 Da by definition, but the relative isotopic mass of a carbon-12 atom is simply 12. The sum of relative isotopic masses of all atoms in a molecule is the relative molecular mass. The atomic mass of an isotope and the relative isotopic mass refers to a certain specific isotope of an element.
The mass-average molecular mass, M w, is also related to the fractional monomer conversion, p, in step-growth polymerization (for the simplest case of linear polymers formed from two monomers in equimolar quantities) as per Carothers' equation: ¯ = + ¯ = (+), where M o is the molecular mass of the repeating unit.
Historically, the mole was defined as the amount of substance in 12 grams of the carbon-12 isotope.As a consequence, the mass of one mole of a chemical compound, in grams, is numerically equal (for all practical purposes) to the mass of one molecule or formula unit of the compound, in daltons, and the molar mass of an isotope in grams per mole is approximately equal to the mass number ...