Foundations of Chemistry

, Volume 15, Issue 1, pp 3–11 | Cite as

What is the mole?

Article
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Abstract

The mole is a difficult concept. Surveys have shown that even many teachers do not have a proper understanding of it. To help to meet this problem, the SI/IUPAC formulation of the mole is carefully presented and explained. New SI proposals are also briefly discussed.

Keywords

Amount of substance Chemical amount Mole Number of entities Avogadro constant Avogadro number Stoicheiometry 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Dr. Chris Botton for encouraging me to write this paper and to Professor Brian P. Leonard for drawing my attention to the new SI proposals.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of ChemistryUniversity of HullHullUK

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