Concentration of Solutions

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Concentration of Solutions
Introduction

Much of the chemistry we do in school is carried out using solutions. You may have
noticed the concentration of those solutions shown on their bottles. This tells us how
many moles of the substance there are in 1 dm3 (that is, 1000 cm3 or 1 litre) of this
particular solution. In this unit we will find out how to work out how many moles there
are in a solution, and how to calculate concentrations.

Moles in solution
The concentration (sometimes called the molarity) of a solution is expressed in moles
per cubic decimetre. You might see this abbreviated to mol/dm3, mol dm3, or M. For
example, an experiment might require a 2 mol dm3 solution of sodium chloride. This
means that 1 dm3 of the solution would have 2 moles of sodium chloride dissolved in
it.
However, laboratory experiments often require different quantities of a solution than 1
dm3 (a litre), so we need to be able to scale down (or up) from the concentration to
find out how many moles we have in the volume of solution we actually use.
Figure 1. Varying the volume of a solution.
Look at the animation above and work out how many moles of sodium chloride
we would have in 125 cm3 of a 2 mol dm3 solution.
250
0.25
125
0.125

We can scale up or down easily when the numbers are convenient. The calculation is
more difficult if you have, say, 37 cm3 of a 2 mol dm3 sodium chloride solution.
However, any calculation like this can be done by scaling down to 1 cm3 of slolution,
then scaling up to the volume of solution you require. Look at these three steps
below:
A concentration of 2 mol dm3 means that 2 moles of sodium chloride have
been dissolved in 1 dm3 (or 1000 cm3).

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So we have worked out that 37 cm3 of a 2 mol dm3 sodium chloride solution
contains 0.074 moles of sodium chloride.
The three steps can be combined in a single equation, as shown below:

Now try these examples:

How many moles of potassium hydroxide are there in 50 cm3 of a 1 mol dm3
solution?
5
0.05
0.5
50

How many moles of calcium nitrate are there in 250 cm3 of a 0.1 mol dm3
solution?
25
0.025
2.5
0.25

How many moles of hydrochloric acid are there in 40 cm3 of a 2 mol dm3
solution?
80
0.08
0.2
0.00005

Making solutions
We can also work out what mass of substance we must dissolve to make up a
solution of a particular concentration. This combines the above solution calculations
with the mass calculations described in the unit Introducing Moles. Consider the
following example:

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Concentration of Solutions

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Suppose you have been asked to make up 500 cm3 of a 0.5 mol dm3 solution
of sodium nitrate. What mass of sodium nitrate will you need?

In practise, you would weigh out 21.25 g of sodium nitrate, dissolve it in a small
quantity of water, then make the solution up to a volume of 500 cm3.
Now you can try a problem:
What mass of sodium chloride do you need to make up 100 cm3 of a 1 mol
dm3 solution of the salt? (Relative atomic masses: Na = 23; Cl =35.5.)
0.0585 g
585 g
5.85 g
58.5 g

Summary

The concentration of a solution is given in moles per cubic decimetre (mol/dm3 or mol
dm3).
We can work out the number of moles in a certain volume of a solution with a known
concentration, using this equation:

When making a particular volume of a solution of known concentration, we first work

out the number of moles of the substance that will be needed. Then we convert this
figure into the corresponding mass in grams using the relative formula mass of the
substance.
To make up the solution we dissolve the calculated mass of the substance in a small
quantity of water, then make it up to the required volume.

Exercises
1. Match each solution to the number of moles it contains:
500 cm3 of a 0.1 mol dm3 solution
25 cm3 of a 1.0 mol dm3 solution
100 cm3 of a 1.5 mol dm3 solution

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Concentration of Solutions

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15 cm3 of a 0.2 mol dm3 solution

22.5 cm3 of a 0.4 mol dm3 solution

2. What mass of solid would you need to dissolve to make up each of the
following solutions? (Relative atomic masses: Pb = 207; N = 14; O = 16;
Na = 23; H = 1; S = 32; K = 39; Cl = 35.5; Br = 80.)
500 cm3 of a 2.0 mol dm3 solution of lead
nitrate, Pb(NO3)2
25 cm3 of a 0.5 mol dm3 solution of sodium
hydroxide, NaOH
75 cm3 of a 0.15 mol dm3 solution of
sodium sulfate, Na2SO4
40 cm3 of a 0.6 mol dm3 solution of
potassium chloride, KCl
250 cm3 of a 0.25 mol dm3 solution of
sodium bromide, NaBr

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