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How to Calculate the Mass of a Solvent

Solvents are the liquids that dissolve other substances to make solutions. Plain water is often used as a solvent, but chemists also use many other substances such as acetone, chloroform and toluene. In some cases, you may need to know the mass of a given amount of solvent, in order to calculate the concentration of the resulting solution. If you know the volume of the solvent, you can always translate this measurement into the solvent mass using the chemical's density. The density of a substance is the weight of a unit volume.

Things You'll Need

Glassware graduated in volume units
Solvent density

Instructions

- 1
  Place the solvent in a container -- such as a beaker of flask -- with volume graduations marked on its side.
- 2
  Read and record the volume of the solvent. This is done by comparing the height of the liquid to the volume marks on the side of the container. For example, if the solvent height lines up with the 500 milliliter (mL) mark on a beaker, you have a volume of 500 mL.
- 3
  Multiply the volume of the solvent by the solvent's density. Make sure you use units of density matching the units you used to record the volume. In the case of the example, you would use units of mL in the density. For instance, your solvent may have a density of 0.82 grams per mL. You can find the density of a solvent on the Material Safety Data Sheet supplied with it.
- 4
  Report or record the result of your calculation as the mass of your quantity of solvent. The mass units will be those used in your value for density. In the example, you would multiply 500 mL by 0.82 grams per mL, to obtain a reported result of 410 grams solvent.

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