kilomoles

Kilomole, symbol kmol, is an SI unit of amount of substance defined as 1000 moles. It is not a base SI unit; the mole is the base unit, and the kilomole is a derived unit that uses the SI prefix kilo to denote a thousandfold amount. Kilomoles are commonly used for large quantities in chemical engineering, thermodynamics, and stoichiometry, where numbers of moles are sizable.

One kilomole contains 1000 moles, which is 1000 × Avogadro’s number of entities, approximately 6.022×10^26 formula units. In terms of mass, the mass of 1 kmol of a substance with molar mass M g/mol is M kilograms: mass = n × M, so with n = 1000 mol, m = 1000 × M g = M kilograms.

For gases, the ideal gas relation PV = nRT can be used with n expressed in kilomoles by adopting R = 8.314 kPa·m^3/(kmol·K) (or 8.314 J/(mol·K) with n in moles). Thus V = n_kmol × R × T / P gives volume in cubic metres when P is in kPa and T in kelvin.

Kilomole is a practical unit in reporting quantities at the scale of industry and research. See also mole, molar mass, Avogadro’s number, and stoichiometry.