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How to Convert a PG to a FMOL

Chemists use various units to describe the amount of a chemical. The mole is a common unit and stands for 6.02 x 10^23 atoms or molecules. The mole is a metric-system unit and therefore scientists can add prefixes to show magnitude. The prefix in femtomole (fmol) stands for a very small quantity of moles: 1 x 10^-15 of them. The gram is a unit of mass and a picogram (pg) is 1 x 10^-12 grams. You can convert between pg and fmol using the molecular weight of a chemical, which is the mass, in grams, of one mole of that compound.

Things You'll Need

Calculator

Instructions

- 1
  Multiply the number of pg that you are converting by 1 x 10^-12. This will convert the mass into units of grams (g). For example, if you want to convert a mass of 3.85 pg, you would calculate 3.85 x 1 x 10^-12 to get 3.85 x 10^-12 g.
- 2
  Divide the mass in grams that you just calculated by the atomic or molecular weight of your chemical. This changes the units into moles. You can obtain atomic weights of elements from a standard periodic table and can find molecular weights of chemicals in the material safety data sheet (MSDS) supplied by the vendor of the chemical. In the case of the example, if your chemical was sodium chloride (NaCl), you would find a molecular weight of 58.44 g/mole on the MSDS and calculate 3.85 x 10^-12/58.44 to get 6.59 x 10^-14.
- 3
  Multiply the result of your previous calculation by 1 x 10^15. This will give you your final answer in units of fmol. For the example, you would multiply (6.59 x 10^-14) x (1 x 10^15) and get an answer of 65.9 fmol NaCl.

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