concentrate

Concentrate is a term with several related meanings used as both a verb and a noun. It can describe the act of focusing mental effort, the process of increasing the proportion of solute in a solution by removing solvent, or a substance or product that has been made more concentrated.

As a verb, concentrate can mean to direct one’s attention or effort toward a single object, task, or idea. In scientific contexts, it also means to increase the concentration of a solution, typically by removing solvent through methods such as evaporation, distillation, or membrane separation.

As a noun, concentrate can refer to a substance from which solvent has been removed or greatly reduced. Common examples include fruit juice concentrate and vegetable stock concentrate, which are intended to be reconstituted with water. In consumer products, a concentrate is a form of a substance produced at higher concentration for later dilution or use.

In scientific usage, concentration describes how much solute is present in a given amount of solution. Common measures include molarity (moles per liter), molality (moles per kilogram of solvent), mass percent, and mole fraction. Concentration influences physical properties such as boiling point, density, and refractive index, and it plays a central role in chemistry, biology, environmental science, and medicine.

Related terms include concentration and concentrate, where concentration refers to the state or process of being concentrated, and concentrate as the product or substance that results from concentrating.