Ерітіндінің молялиті: анықтамасы мен ерекшеліктері

Amount of substance of solute divided by the mass of the solvent

In chemistry, molality is a measure of the amount of solute in a solution relative to a given mass of solvent. This contrasts with the definition of molarity which is based on a given volume of solution. A commonly used unit for molality is the moles per kilogram (mol/kg). A solution of concentration 1 mol/kg is also sometimes denoted as 1 molal. The unit mol/kg requires that molar mass be expressed in kg/mol, instead of the usual g/mol or kg/kmol.

The term molality is formed in analogy to molarity which is the molar concentration of a solution. The earliest known use of the intensive property molality and of its adjectival unit, the now deprecated molal, appears to have been published by G. N. Lewis and M. Randall in the 1923 publication of Thermodynamics and the Free Energies of Chemical Substances. Though the two terms are subject to being confused with one another, the molality and molarity of a dilute aqueous solution are nearly the same, as one kilogram of water (solvent) occupies the volume of 1 liter at room temperature and a small amount of solute has little effect on the volume.

The SI unit for molality is moles per kilogram of solvent. A solution with a molality of 3 mol/kg is often described as "3 molal", "3 m" or "3 m". However, following the SI system of units, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the United States authority on measurement, considers the term "molal" and the unit symbol "m" to be obsolete, and suggests mol/kg or a related unit of the SI.

The primary advantage of using molality as a measure of concentration is that molality only depends on the masses of solute and solvent, which are unaffected by variations in temperature and pressure. In contrast, solutions prepared volumetrically (e. g. molar concentration or mass concentration) are likely to change as temperature and pressure change. In many applications, this is a significant advantage because the mass, or the amount, of a substance is often more important than its volume (e. g. in a limiting reagent problem). Another advantage of molality is the fact that the molality of one solute in a solution is independent of the presence or absence of other solutes.

Unlike all the other compositional properties listed in "Relation" section (below), molality depends on the choice of the substance to be called “solvent” in an arbitrary mixture. If there is only one pure liquid substance in a mixture, the choice is clear, but not all solutions are this clear cut: in an alcohol–water solution, either one could be called the solvent; in an alloy, or solid solution, there is no clear choice and all constituents may be treated alike. In such situations, mass or mole fraction is the preferred compositional specification.

Osmolality is a variation of molality that takes into account only solutes that contribute to a solution's osmotic pressure. It is measured in osmoles of the solute per kilogram of water. This unit is frequently used in medical laboratory results in place of osmolarity, because it can be measured simply by depression of the freezing point of a solution, or cryoscopy (see also: osmostat and colligative properties).