Hey guys. I’m struggling to understand the concept of moles, and was hoping someone could explain it a lot easier than in previous posts. I understand that a mole of something means that there is 6.022 x 10\^23 of that something (similar to the idea of 1 dozen = 12 things), but I don’t quite understand when for example 1 mole of Nitrogen is 14g.
If 1 mole of nitrogen means that there is 6.022 x 10\^23 nitrogen atoms, how does 1 mole of nitrogen equal 14g? Is it saying that 6.022 x 10\^23 nitrogen atoms (1 mole of nitrogen) is equal to 14g, since the mass of a nitrogen atom (single nitrogen atom) would be super small, and so we use moles to convert it into a reasonable mass for easier calculations e.g. 14g?
Hope that wasn’t too confusing :S
Thanks everyone! 🙂
In: Chemistry
1 mole is the amount of amu (atomic mass units) in a gram.
Nitrogen has a mass number of 14.0067u, so one mole of nitrogen atoms has a mass of exactly 14.0067g
Nitrogen is a diatomic molecule, so we really find it as N2, so a mole of N2 has a mass of 28.0134g
You’re right that we use it because a single atom or molecule is too small to work with, but for practical experiments, not for calculations. Or math works at all scales, but we can’t physically work at such small scales.
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