The
mole is a
unit of measurement for
amount of substance. It is defined as the amount of any
chemical substance that contains as many
elementary entities, e.g.,
atoms,
molecules,
ions,
electrons, or
photons, as there are atoms in 12
grams of pure
carbon-12 (
12C), the
isotope of
carbon with
relative atomic mass 12 by definition. This number is expressed by the
Avogadro constant, which has a value of . In other words, the mole is the name given to an amount of a substance equal in mass (in grams) to the combined mass (in
amu) of the atoms of the constituent molecules of the substance multiplied by Avogadro's number. It is one of the
base units in the
International System of Units; it has the unit symbol
mol.