About this video
This video shows how to make a dilute solution from a more concentrated one. To prepare 500 mL of 0.125 M sodium sulfate from a 1 M stock, it first finds the moles of solute needed (volume times molarity = 0.0625 mol), then finds the volume of the stock that contains those moles (0.0625 mol / 1 M = 62.5 mL). You measure 62.5 mL of stock and add water up to 500 mL.
You'll be able to
- use molarity = moles of solute per liter of solution.
- calculate the moles of solute needed for a target dilute solution.
- find the volume of a concentrated stock needed to supply those moles.
Key words
- dilution
- Making a solution less concentrated by adding more solvent.
- molarity
- The concentration of a solution, equal to moles of solute per liter of solution.
- solute
- The dissolved substance, here sodium sulfate.
- stock solution
- The original, more concentrated solution you dilute from.
Transcript
- [Instructor] In this video, we're gonna talk about a concept in chemistry that's quite important, known as dilutions. So let's do an example. So let's say we have a large vat, as much as we need. It's a one-molar solution of sodium sulfate, and it's an aqueous solution.
So sodium sulfate is dissolved in water. And let's say we also have as much water as we need, and what we want to do is create a solution, another aqueous solution of sodium sulfate, but one that has a different concentration, in this case, one that has a lower concentration.
So we want to create a 0.125-molar solution of sodium sulfate, and we want 500 milliliters of this new solution. Pause this video and think about how you would approach that. All right, now let's think about this together. So, first let's just go over the intuition.
You have a higher concentration here. You have a lower concentration here. So our intuition would tell us is that we're going to take less than 500 milliliters of our original solution, pour some of that in. That's going to have a sufficient number of moles of sodium sulfate that, if we were to then fill this up to 500 milliliters, that we would then have a 0.125-molar solution.
So the question really is, is how much of this do we have to put in, which we can then dilute with water to get to our goal solution? Well, to answer that question, we just have to figure out how many moles of sodium sulfate need to be in this final goal solution, this one or this one, depending on how we visualize it?
And then, how much of our original solution, of our one-molar solution, do we need to take out to have that many moles? And to think about how many moles, we just have to remind ourselves what molarity is. We know already that molarity is equal to number of moles, number of moles, of solute per liters of solution, liters of solution.
Or another way to think about it is, if we multiply both sides by liters of solution, we would get liters of solution times molarity, times molarity, is equal to the number of moles of solute, number of moles of solute. So what we can do is say, all right, how many moles of our solute do we need in our goal?
Well, to do that, we just have to say, all right, we want to eventually have 500 milliliters of solution, or we could rewrite that as 0.500 liters, and this little decimal point right over here makes it clear that we're dealing with three significant figures, that we've rounded to the nearest one, when we got to this, when we have this goal right over here, or we would round to the nearest, to the ones place, I guess.
So, our goal is to have half a liter of solution at a molarity of 0.125 molar, and then that is gonna give us the number of moles we need. And, if we multiply this out, this is going to be zero point, let's see, half of 12 is 6 and then half of 50 is 25, 0.0625 moles, moles of solute.
And, in this case, our solute is sodium sulfate. And let's see if I got the significant figures right. I have three right over here, one, two, three, one, two, three. So I take the product. I'd still have one, two, three significant figures. So this is our goal.
We want to have this many moles of solute. So we just have to figure out how much of our original solution do we need in order to have that many moles of sodium sulfate? So, one way to think about it is, there's some mystery volume of our original solution we need, and we know what its concentration is.
It's a one-molar concentration that, when I take this product, I am going to get 0.0625 moles of sodium sulfate. And the math here is pretty straightforward. We can divide both sides by one molar, and what are we going to get? And the units work out because we're in moles where you have molar here.
And so this is going to give us our answer in liters. You divide both sides by one molar. You're going to get that question mark is equal to 0.0625 liters of solution. Or another way to think about it is, this is equivalent to 62.5 milliliters of our original solution.
I want to make sure I got all the significant figures right. Had three over there. One, two, three, one, two, three. And so, yes, right over here. I can still have one, two, three significant figures or sometimes called significant digits. And so there we've answered our question.
What I would do is I would take 62.5, 62.5 milliliters of my original solution, so that's this over here, and then I would take my water and then keep filling until I get to 500 milliliters, and we're done. At that point, I'm going to have a 0.125 molar of sodium sulfate aqueous solution.
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