Introducing “The Mole and his smaller cousin Millimole.
When I taught elementary chemistry, some of my pupils had trouble with a concept called the “mole”. I found it useful and not at all difficult, but that’s me. I can do percentages too.
When dealing with small molecules, it’s easy. Most people remember from school science that water molecules have the symbol H2O. That means that every water molecule consists of 2 hydrogen atoms chemically combined with an oxygen atom.
The relative weight of an atom is determined by comparison with a carbon atom a carbon RAM = 12 On that scale H=1 and O = 16, thus a water molecule weighs 18 on the RAM scale
Using the same scale Salt ~ Sodium chloride~ Na Cl RAM~23 + 35.5 +58.5
And glucose C6 H12 O6~ 72+12+96=180.
If you weigh out the RAM equivalent in grams of any substance the quantity you will have will be a “mole” and each mole of any element or compound contains Avogadro’s number(6.02 X 10 23 )of atoms or molecules. That’s 6.02,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
I find problems doing the sums for haemoglobin, since there are several different kinds
One formula for one of the various chains of Haemoglobin is
C738H1166N812O203S2Fe
A mole of this stuff weighs 24758g, which is a mole
Millimole is 1/1000 of a mole
Hence 0.18g glucose or 0.059g salt, or 0.018g water or 24.758g of the kind of haemoglobin chain I calculated
I haven’t found out yet whether it’s millimoles of Glycosylated haemoglobin, of whichever chain in What? Unglycosylsted haemoglobin? Whole blood? Which.? It won’t make total sense until I find out. And which kinds of haemoglobin chains?
If the test stays the same, it’s Glycosylated haemoglobin as a proportion of total haemoglobin and there wasn’t really any point in confusing me and making me do all this maths.
When I taught elementary chemistry, some of my pupils had trouble with a concept called the “mole”. I found it useful and not at all difficult, but that’s me. I can do percentages too.
When dealing with small molecules, it’s easy. Most people remember from school science that water molecules have the symbol H2O. That means that every water molecule consists of 2 hydrogen atoms chemically combined with an oxygen atom.
The relative weight of an atom is determined by comparison with a carbon atom a carbon RAM = 12 On that scale H=1 and O = 16, thus a water molecule weighs 18 on the RAM scale
Using the same scale Salt ~ Sodium chloride~ Na Cl RAM~23 + 35.5 +58.5
And glucose C6 H12 O6~ 72+12+96=180.
If you weigh out the RAM equivalent in grams of any substance the quantity you will have will be a “mole” and each mole of any element or compound contains Avogadro’s number(6.02 X 10 23 )of atoms or molecules. That’s 6.02,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
I find problems doing the sums for haemoglobin, since there are several different kinds
One formula for one of the various chains of Haemoglobin is
C738H1166N812O203S2Fe
A mole of this stuff weighs 24758g, which is a mole
Millimole is 1/1000 of a mole
Hence 0.18g glucose or 0.059g salt, or 0.018g water or 24.758g of the kind of haemoglobin chain I calculated
I haven’t found out yet whether it’s millimoles of Glycosylated haemoglobin, of whichever chain in What? Unglycosylsted haemoglobin? Whole blood? Which.? It won’t make total sense until I find out. And which kinds of haemoglobin chains?
If the test stays the same, it’s Glycosylated haemoglobin as a proportion of total haemoglobin and there wasn’t really any point in confusing me and making me do all this maths.
