Lemonade is a tasty, refreshing drink to enjoy on a hot summer day. Tasty, that is, unless not prepared properly.

One person might make a batch of lemonade that has a bland taste. Another person might make a batch using the same ingredients but produce lemonade that is too tart to enjoy. A third person might make a batch that tastes absolutely delicious. What is it about three different batches of lemonade all made using the same ingredientsthat give rise to such different results that you can taste? What does this have to do with chemistry?

Lemonade is an example of a solution. A substance that is solution: a mixture of dissolved in a solution is a solute. The substance in which a pure substances with a uniform composition solute is dissolved is the solvent. In the case of lemonade, the solute is lemon juice and the solvent is water. Sugar is often added to lemonade, and this represents another solute in the lemonade solution. The difference between a sweet glass and a sour glass of lemonade has to do with the amounts of lemon juice and sugar mixed into solution. The amount of solute present in a solution is the solutions concentration. Solutions are important in chemistry because they are used in many laboratory procedures. When using solutions, chemists need to know the identities of the solutes and solvents in the solutions as well as the concentrations of the solutes. Molarity (M) is the concentration of a solution in chemistry. It is defined as the number of moles of solute per liter of solution, or mol/L. This unit of mol/L is also called molar. A two molar solution of sodium hydroxide (NaOH), for example, is written as 2 M NaOH.

Molarity is moles of solute per liter of solution, not per liter of solvent. To calculate molarity, do not first measure the volume of solvent and then add solute to it. The solute particles take up space, and your final solution volume will be a little larger than desired. Instead, begin with the solute and add enough solvent to produce the required amount of solution.
A chemist adds the final drops of solvent to make the desired amount of solution. 2013 Rice University All Rights Reserved

What is the molarity of a solution made by dissolving 1.00 mole of solute in enough solvent to produce 1.00 liter of solution? How does this solutions molarity compare to that of another solution made by dissolving 10.00 moles of solute in enough solvent to produce 1.00 liter of solution? Check your answers before the What Do You Know? section of this companion.

Make sure the units are correct when calculating molarity. Suppose a chemist makes a saline solution that contains 23.4 g of sodium chloride (NaCl) in enough water to produce exactly 275 mL of solution. What is the molarity of the solution? 1. Determine the amount of solute: The mass of the solute in this problem is given in grams, so it must be converted to moles. To do this, we first need to use the atomic masses of sodium (Na) and chlorine (Cl) from the periodic table to calculate the molar mass of NaCl:
formula weight of NaCl = 22.99 amu + 35.45 amu = 58.44 amu molar mass of NaCl = 58.44 g/mol

We can then use the molar mass to calculate the moles of NaCl for the given mass:

23.4 g NaCl

1 mol NaCl 0.400 mol NaCl 58.44 g NaCl

2. Determine the volume of the solution: The volume of the solution must be converted from milliliters (mL) to liters (L):

275 mL

1L 0.275 L 1000 mL

3. Calculate the molarity: We can now use the moles of solute and liters of solution to calculate the molarity of the solution:

molarity (mol/L)

amount of solute (mol) amount of solution (L) 0.400 mol 0.275 L 1.45 mol/L

The chemist has produced a 1.45 M saline solution.

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At the beginning of this companion, we talked about lemonade that did not taste very good because it contained either too much or too little lemon juice. Suppose you had a pitcher of lemonade made with too much lemon juice. You could dilute it by adding water until the lemonade tasted less sour. Dilution is the process of adding solvent to a solution to decrease the concentration of solute. As the illustration at right A concentrated solution is diluted by shows, adding more solvent to a solution does adding more and more solvent. not change the moles of solute. However, adding more solvent causes the concentration of solute to decrease. The volume (V) and molarity (M) of a solution can be multiplied to give the moles of solute in the solution:
moles of solute V M

During a dilution, the number of moles of solute remains constant. Only the volume and molarity of the solution change. This allows us to write an equation relating initial moles to final moles:
initial moles of solute final moles of solute

Substituting the volumes and molarities, we can rewrite this equation as follows:

V1 M1 V2 M2
The subscript 1 describes the initial solution, and the subscript 2 describes the diluted solution. Thus, a dilution calculation is based on the idea that the moles of a solution remain constant, and only the volume and molarity of the solution change as the dilution process is carried out. The molarity or required volume of the diluted solution can be calculated from the concentrated solution using the dilution equation. As long as three of the four variables in the dilution equation are known, the fourth can be calculated. For example, suppose a chemist mixes 250.0 mL of a 5.00 M solution of hydrochloric acid (HCl) with 500.0 mL of water. What is the molarity of the diluted solution? Try to solve the problem on your own, then turn to the next page for the answer.

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The initial volume and molarity are V1 = 250.0 mL and M1 = 5.00 M HCl. The final volume is V2 = 250.0 mL + 500.0 mL = 750.0 mL. We can use these values in the dilution equation to calculate the final molarity, M2.

V1 M1 V2 M2 M2 V1 M1 V2

(250.0 mL)(5.00 M HCl) 750.0 mL 1.67 M HCl

After diluting the solution, the chemist has a 1.67 M HCl solution. Notice that it was not necessary to convert the volume of the solution to liters. As long as the volume is described by the same unit before and after the dilution, the equation is balanced.

Chemists are not the only scientists who use dilutions of solutions in their laboratory procedures. Microbiologists use dilutions of solutions to determine the concentration of bacteria in a particular solution. Specifically, a microbiologist makes a set of serial dilutions so that several diluted solutions are made from a single stock solution. Instead of making each dilution from the stock solution, however, the microbiologist makes serial dilutions by diluting each solution in succession as it is made. In other words, the stock solution is used only for the first dilution. The newly diluted solution serves as the stock solution for the next dilution, and so on. For example, suppose 1.00 mL of the stock solution is diluted to a total final volume of 10.00 mL. Next, 1.00 mL of this diluted solution is diluted to a total final volume of 10.00 mL. A 1.00 mL sample of this diluted solution is further diluted to a total final volume of 10.00 mL. This process continues until a range of diluted solutions has been made. How does this help the microbiologist quantify the bacteria in the original stock solution? The microbiologist spreads each dilution evenly across a separate plate covered with agar, a substance that provides nutrition for the bacteria. The plates are kept warm for a certain time to encourage the bacteria to reproduce and grow.
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Microbiologists place serial dilutions of bacterial solutions onto agar plates to count bacteria.

Afterward, the plates reveal a distribution of colonies of bacteria. The more concentrated dilutions are covered with more bacteria. In these plates, there are so many bacteria that individual colonies cannot be counted. At the other end of the dilution spectrum, the plates containing the least-concentrated dilutions may not have any bacterial colonies at all. However, at some dilution level between these two extremes, the number of colonies on a plate will be easily counted. Each colony represents one bacterium cell from the original diluted solution. Thus, the microbiologist can use the number of colonies on this plate along with the dilution information to calculate the original concentration of bacteria in the stock solution.

Molarity equals moles of solute per liter of solution (mol/L). 1. A 1.00-L solution containing 1.00 mol of solute has a molarity of 1.00 mol/L. 2. A 1.00-L solution containing 10.00 mol of solute has a molarity of 10.00 mol/L. The second solution is 10 times more concentrated than the first solution.

Fill in the missing quantities to describe the molarity of a NaCl solution. In some cases, the solution that the values describe has been diluted. Amount of NaCl 4 mol Volume of the original solution 3L 4L 6 mol 2 mol 2L 2L 0L 2L Volume of water added during dilution 5L 0L 0.25 M 2M 2M Molarity

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To help students learn more about diluting solutions, have them plan and carry out a dilution procedure for testing taste preferences of chocolate milk. Have students use chocolate syrup as a stock solution and white milk as the solvent. Before making any solutions, have students work out a plan for making specific dilutions of the chocolate syrup. They should plan to make at least five different dilutions, and they can use common kitchenware for making measurements. Once they have made their plan, and you have approved it, allow them to carry out their dilutions. Then have students run a taste test in which they ask volunteers to taste samples of each dilution and rate the pleasantness of taste. Students should ask as many volunteers as possible to participate. Finally, have students write a summary of the results of their survey. Here are some questions to discuss with students: Why does dilution affect the taste of the resulting solution? How does the concentration of chocolate change in each of your diluted solutions? Can you specify a ratio or other mathematical relationship in your answer? What information would you need to know in order to determine the molarity of each of your solutions?

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