GENERAL CHEMISTRY

Lesson 1: CONCENTRATION OF SOLUTION E. Parts per Million, ppm

• concentration of solution - refers to the amount of solute
present in a given amount of solvent or solution.
• dilute - a solution that contains a small proportion of solute
relative to solvent
• concentrated - a solution that contains a large proportion of
solute relative to the solvent.
A. Percent Concentration (by Mass, by Volume and by Mass-
Volume)
I. Percent by Mass
For a very dilute solution where the concentration of the
solute is very low like pesticide residue in water or heavy
metal like Hg2+ concentration in effluents, or even hardness
of water, it is convenient to express concentration in terms of
parts per million, ppm. Parts per million (ppm) expresses the
number of parts of solute per one million parts of the solution.

II. Percent by Volume, Volume/Volume Percent or %

(vol/vol)

Theentire
some
and/or
properties
especially
containing
components
sometimes
the
concentration.
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variation
physical
chemical
or
isrange
over
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only
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ain
ofThe
two
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B. Mole Fraction, X
The variation in some physical and/or chemical properties
of a solution especially those containing only two
components is sometimes described over the entire range
of concentration. The concentration of the solution is best
described by mole fraction or mole percent.

C.
Concentration
Molarity,
of
solute
volume
liters.
in
Molarity
Molar
the moles
toofthe
M
issolution
the
of or
ratio
C. Molar Concentration or Molarity, M
Molarity is the ratio of the moles of solute to the volume
of solution in liters.

D. Molal Concentration or Molality, m

Solutions may also be expressed in molality. The molality of a
solution is the ratio of moles of solute to the mass of solvent in
kilograms.