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In chemistry, a formula unit is the smallest unit of a non-molecular substance, such as an ionic compound, covalent network solid, or metal. [1] [2] It can also refer to the chemical formula for that unit. Those structures do not consist of discrete molecules, and so for them, the term formula unit is used.
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 ...
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 molecular mass can be calculated from the chemical formula and is expressed in conventional atomic mass units equal to 1/12 of the mass of a neutral carbon-12 (12 C isotope) atom. For network solids, the term formula unit is used in stoichiometric calculations.
An example of the difference is the empirical formula for glucose, which is CH 2 O (ratio 1:2:1), while its molecular formula is C 6 H 12 O 6 (number of atoms 6:12:6). For water, both formulae are H 2 O. A molecular formula provides more information about a molecule than its empirical formula, but is more difficult to establish.
A molecular formula enumerates the number of atoms to reflect those in the molecule, so that the molecular formula for glucose is C 6 H 12 O 6 rather than the glucose empirical formula, which is CH 2 O. Except for the very simple substances, molecular chemical formulas generally lack needed structural information, and might even be ambiguous in ...
The terms "molecular mass", "molecular weight", and "molar mass" may be used interchangeably in less formal contexts where unit- and quantity-correctness is not needed. The molecular mass is more commonly used when referring to the mass of a single or specific well-defined molecule and less commonly than molecular weight when referring to a ...
In the International System of Units (SI), the coherent unit for molar concentration is mol/m 3. However, most chemical literature traditionally uses mol/dm 3, which is the same as mol/L. This traditional unit is often called a molar and denoted by the letter M, for example: 1 mol/m 3 = 10 −3 mol/dm 3 = 10 −3 mol/L = 10 −3 M = 1 mM = 1 ...