ABSTRACT
Concentration is the normal variable used to define the composition, or the relative amounts of solvent and solute in a solution. The concentration of a species A, cA, is defined as:
where nA is the number of moles of A in solution and V is the volume of the solution. This normally has units of mol dm−3 (also written M for molar). The concentration of A is often also written as [A]. A solution is typically prepared by dispersing (dissolving) nA moles of solute in solvent to produce a final total volume of V. This is generally not the same as mixing nA moles of solute with a volume, V, of water, as the volume after mixing is usually not V in this case.
