mmole

mmole is a unit of measurement used in chemistry and biology. It represents one-thousandth of a mole. A mole is a fundamental unit of amount of substance in the International System of Units (SI). It is defined as the amount of substance that contains exactly 6.02214076 × 10^23 elementary entities, such as atoms, molecules, ions, or electrons. Therefore, one mmole contains 6.02214076 × 10^20 elementary entities.

The prefix "milli-" signifies a factor of 10^-3. Thus, mmole is equivalent to 10^-3 moles. This unit is particularly useful when dealing with small quantities of substances, which is common in laboratory settings, especially in biochemistry and analytical chemistry. For instance, concentrations of substances in biological fluids like blood or cellular extracts are often expressed in millimoles per liter (mmol/L), also known as millimolar (mM).

Using millimoles helps to avoid excessively small or large numbers in calculations and reporting. For example, instead of stating a concentration as 0.005 moles per liter, it is more convenient to express it as 5 millimoles per liter. This practice improves readability and reduces the chance of errors. The concept of the mole, and by extension the millimole, is based on Avogadro's number, which is the number of constituent particles (usually atoms or molecules) that are contained in one mole of a substance.