Question

How do you calculate the number of ions in a solution?

Answer 1

Calculation of the number of ions in a solution:

Step 1: Calculating the number of moles

• The mole is used as a measurement or a basic unit that helps in calculating the amount of substance present in the given sample.
• To calculate the number of ions, one must first calculate the number of moles of a given element.

$\mathrm{Number}\mathrm{of}\mathrm{moles}\left(\mathrm{n}\right)=\frac{\mathrm{Given}\mathrm{mass}}{\mathrm{Molecular}\mathrm{mass}}$

Step 2: Calculating the number of ions

• After calculating the number of moles, the number of ions will be equal to the product of the number of moles and Avogadro’s number.

$$\begin{gathered} \mathrm{Number}\mathrm{of}\mathrm{ions}=(\mathrm{number}\mathrm{of}\mathrm{moles})\times {\mathrm{N}}_{\mathrm{A}} \\ \mathrm{where}{\mathrm{N}}_{\mathrm{A}}=\mathrm{Avogadro}\mathrm{number} \end{gathered}$$

Hence, the number of ions in a solution can be calculated as above , using the mole concept as; $\mathrm{Number}\mathrm{of}\mathrm{ions}=(\mathrm{number}\mathrm{of}\mathrm{moles})\times {\mathrm{N}}_{\mathrm{A}}$.