The MOLE The Center of the Chemical Universe

The Mole Does NOT refer to a small woodland animal who lives in underground tunnels Does NOT refer to a pigment-enhanced area of skin Does NOT refer to an informant placed inside an organization Does NOT refer to a Mexican cooking sauce DOES refer to the MOST IMPORTANT COUNTING UNIT OF….ALL….TIME!!!!!

The MOLE IS A COUNTING UNIT FOR CHEMISTRY. Is equal to 6.02 x This is a very, very large number. Move the decimal over 23 times. Do it now. Do you think you get how big this number is?

The MOLE How many is in a pair? 2 is right, good job. How many are in a dozen? 12. Right again, you are smart. Now….how many are in a gross? 144. It doesn’t matter what you are counting, it’s the counting unit that tells how many.

The MOLE IS a counting unit for chemistry. A mole is x atoms or molecules. We need a big number because atoms and molecules are so small. What if……..we counted regular items in moles????????

The MOLE One mole of paper clips connected would circle the Earth 400 trillion times. If you connected them at a pace of 1 million clips per second, it would take 190 million centuries to create the chain. Would a mole of rice fill up this room?

The MOLE NO! It would cover every square inch of the land area of Earth to a depth of 75 meters! One mole of rice grains is more than the total amount of ALL grain grown…SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME!

The MOLE Try a quarter of a billion years! A mole of rain drops put in a 30 m diameter tank would require a tank that had…… SIDES 280 TIMES THE DISTANCE FROM THE EARTH TO THE SUN! A mole of hockey pucks would weigh…. AS MUCH AS THE MOON! WHOOOO!

The MOLE Would a mole of marshmallows (the big kind, not the little hot chocolate kind) cover all of Oregon if you spread them all out? NO WAY! It would actually cover EVERY SQUARE INCH OF THE UNITED STATES TO A DEPTH OF 650 MILES!!!!!! (by way of comparison Mt. Hood is a little over 2 mi. tall)

THE MOLE Would a mole of marbles (standard size), arranged in a perfectly conical mountain, create a mountain as big as Mt. Everest? DON’T YOU GET IT YET? IT WOULD MAKE A BEHEMOTH, GARGANTUAN MOUNTAIN 116 TIMES THE SIZE OF MT. EVEREST! THE BASE WOULD BE BIGGER THAN THE UNITED STATES!

THE MOLE!!!! If you had one mole (6.02 x ) of pennies, and you bought kite string at A MILLION DOLLARS per inch….(nice deal, Rockefeller) You could buy enough string to go around the Earth A MILLION TIMES….and then to the MOON AND BACK 25 TIMES!!!!! You’d still have lots of string left over…..

THE MOLE!!!! You could sell the leftover string for a penny an inch (another nice move, you are a financial wizard). With that money, you could….. Buy every man, woman, and child in the United States a $5000 used car and give them enough gasoline so we all could run them NONSTOP at 55mph for an entire year…..and also………….

THE MOLE!!!! If there was actually a mole of pennies, and we divided it equally worldwide, you would have to spend 1 million dollars each day to use up your share……

THE MOLE!!!! BUT YOU WOULD HAVE TO LIVE TO BE 4000 YEARS OLD TO USE UP YOUR MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do you think there is a mole of SAND particles on Earth?????? (based on coastline miles and desert size???) ALMOST. NOW………………would you like to see a mole of water molecules????

Avogadro and The Periodic Table Avogadro (not avocado) was the one who calculated the mole number x Lithium Li 3 The average atomic mass (6.941) has TWO roles in chemistry. FIRST, it tells the mass of ONE ATOM in amu (atomic mass units). It also tells the mass of ONE MOLE of atoms in GRAMS! This is very useful to us…we call it MOLAR MASS. There are no amu scales, only gram scales.

MOLAR MASS Finding the Molar Mass of an element is easy. 1. Find the element on the PT 2. Write down the mass 3. add the unit g/mol NOW you have TWO pieces of info--- the mass in amu of one atom the mass of a MOLE of that atom in grams!

Sodium Phosphate Na 3 (PO 4 ) Na: 3 x 23 = 69 P: 1 x 31 = 31 O: 4 x 16 = 64 This adds up to 164 amu for one molecule… OR 164 g/mol Calcium Phosphate Ca 3 (PO 4 ) 2 Here are some examples: Ca: 3 x 40 = 120 P: 2 x 31 = 62 O: 8 x 16 = 128 This adds up to 310 amu for one molecule…OR 310 g/mol

Molar Mass So, why do we care? Well, it’s like this…. If we have a scale, and can measure mass, we can “count” how many atoms there are that way. It’s just like buying nails to build a house. You don’t sit on the floor and count them, you buy them by weight. For instance, if you need 1200 nails, and each pound of nails has 50 nails, you would just weigh out 24 pounds and there you go. No need for counting. 1 lb. = 50 nails is just like 310g of calcium phosphate = 1 mole of calcium phosphate molecules.

THE END! Time to practice Conversions!