How does the mole relate to atoms, molecules and ions?

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How does the mole relate to atoms, molecules and ions?

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Answer 1 · 2016-03-24T05:44:55

A mole is simply a quantity of $6.022 \times 10^{23}$ $6.022xx10^23$ of anything. We can have a mole of atoms, molecules, ions... or elephants.

One mole of atoms of an element has a mass equivalent to the 'mass number' (now sometimes called 'nucleon number') of that element, e.g. 1 mole of $_{6}^{12} C$ $""_6^12C$ has a mass of $12$ $12$ $g$ $g$ .

Explanation:

Technically it's slightly more complex than the answer above, because different isotopes have different mass numbers and abundances.

Carbon is mostly $_{6}^{12} C$ $""_6^12C$ , with very small amounts of $_{6}^{13} C$ $""_6^13C$ and $_{6}^{14} C$ $""_6^14C$ , so the relative atomic mass of naturally occurring carbon is very close to $12$ $12$ gmol^-1#.

On the other hand, naturally occurring chlorine is about $\frac{3}{4}$ $3/4$ $_{17}^{35} C l$ $""_17^35Cl$ and about $\frac{1}{4}$ $1/4$ $_{17}^{37} C l$ $""_17^37Cl$ , so the relative atomic mass of naturally occurring $C l$ $Cl$ is about $35.5$ $35.5$ .

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How does the mole relate to atoms, molecules and ions?

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