What Is A Mole In Chemistry?

If I ask your age, the answer is most probably given in years and not in seconds. In Chemistry we use moles and not the number of atoms because they are very small and very large in numbers. So chemists have put a large number of atoms (avogadro`s number 6 x 10 ²³) together and called a mole. So this way we do not have to count the atoms since they are very small. In order to find the mass of a mole, chemists have expressed atomic mass of each atoms as grams ( This is called relative atomic mass because it has been compared to 1/12 of carbon-12 which is one).

For example one mole of Alumium has a molar mass of 27 grams. An empty can of a soft drink assuming it is all made of Al atoms with a mass of 13.5 grams has 0.5 moles of Al.

One mole of marshmallows (6 x10 ²³ marshmallows) covers the surface of USA to a depth of 105,000 km. Big number, right!