Avogadro's number refers to the number of elemental entities in one mole.
Avogadro's number is understood as the number of elementary entities (that is, atoms , electrons, ions, molecules ) that exist in one mole of any substance. But let's see what this means.
A mole is the unit contemplated by the International System of Units that allows measuring and expressing a certain amount of substance . This is the unit that chemists use to report the weight of each atom, a figure that is equivalent to a very large number of particles. One mole, according to experts, is equivalent to the number of atoms in twelve grams of pure carbon-12 . The equation would be the following: 1 mol = 6.022045 x 10 to the power of 23 particles .
What is Avogadro's number
This quantity is usually rounded as 6.022 x 10 to the power of 23 and is called Avogadro's number (sometimes presented as Avogadro's constant ) in honor of the Italian scientist Amedeo Avogadro ( 1776-1856 ), who also formulated the law that states that, under equal conditions of temperature and pressure, identical volumes of different gases have the same number of particles. The usefulness of Avogadro's constant lies in the need to count microscopic particles or entities from macroscopic measurements (such as mass ).
However, we must not forget the name of another series of scientific figures who, in one way or another, have contributed with their theories and studies to consolidate Avogadro's constant or number. Among those would be, for example, the French physicist Jean Perrin who received the Nobel Prize in his area of work thanks to the various analyzes he carried out based on the determination of said constant.
Contributions from other scientists
Likewise, it is also worth highlighting the important role played at the time by the Austrian physicist and chemist Johann Josef Loschmidt, who was one of the first scholars and theorists of the size of molecules and atomic valence. Specifically, he was the first scientist to calculate the size of air molecules.
Avogadro's number is equal to 6.022 x 10 to the power of 23.
Such was the importance of his development of the kinetic theory of gases, although it included various errors, that currently in the aforementioned sector it is also common to talk about what is called Loschmidt's constant.
Utility and estimation of Avogadro's number
It is important to keep in mind that Avogadro's number is immense: it is equivalent, for example, to the entire volume of the Moon divided into balls with a radius of one millimeter. Avogadro's number, on the other hand, allows conversions to be established between the gram and the atomic mass unit .
Since the mole expresses the number of atoms in 12 grams of carbon-12, it is possible to state that the mass in grams of one mole of atoms of an element is equal to the atomic weight in atomic mass units of said element.
In addition to all of the above, we have to determine that there are various methods to measure the value of Avogadro's number. Thus, we find, for example, the coulometry system. However, it is not the only one since there are also others, such as the electron mass method, also called CODATA, or the measurement system through the density of the crystal using X-rays.