equivalent weight

equivalent weight, in chemistry, the quantity of a substance that exactly reacts with, or is equal to the combining value of, an arbitrarily fixed quantity of another substance in a particular reaction. Substances react with each other in stoichiometric, or chemically equivalent, proportions, and a common standard has been adopted. The concept of equivalent weight has been displaced by that of molar mass, which is the mass of one mole of a substance.

The equivalent weight of an element is its gram atomic weight divided by its valence (combining power). Some equivalent weights are: silver (Ag), 107.868 grams (g); magnesium (Mg), 24.312/2 g; aluminum (Al), 26.9815/3 g; and sulfur (S, in forming a sulfide), 32.064/2 g. For an element, the equivalent weight is the quantity that combines with or replaces 1.008 g of hydrogen or 7.9997 g of oxygen; or, the weight of an element that is liberated in an electrolysis (chemical reaction caused by an electric current) by the passage of 1 faraday (96,485.3321233 coulombs) of electricity.

For compounds that function as oxidizing or reducing agents (compounds that act as acceptors or donors of electrons), the equivalent weight is the gram molecular weight divided by the number of electrons lost or gained by each molecule—e.g., potassium permanganate (KMnO₄) in acid solution, 158.038/5 g; potassium dichromate (K₂Cr₂O₇), 294.192/6 g; and sodium thiosulfate (Na₂S₂O₃·5H₂O), 248.1828/1 g. For all oxidizing and reducing agents (elements or compounds), the equivalent weight is the weight of the substance that is associated with the loss or gain of one mole (6.023 × 10²³) of electrons. The equivalent weight of an acid or base for neutralization reactions or of any other compound that acts by double decomposition is the quantity of the compound that will furnish or react with or be equivalent to 1.008 g of hydrogen ion or 17.0074 g of hydroxide ion—e.g., hydrochloric acid (HCl), 36.461 g; sulfuric acid (H₂SO₄), 98.078/2 g; sodium hydroxide (NaOH), 40 g; or sodium carbonate (Na₂CO₃), 105.9892/ 2 g.

The equivalent weight of a substance may vary with the type of reaction it undergoes. Thus, potassium permanganate reacting by double decomposition has an equivalent weight equal to its gram molecular weight, 158.038/1 g; as an oxidizing agent under different circumstances it may be reduced to the manganate ion (MnO₄²⁻), to manganese dioxide (MnO₂), or to the manganous ion (Mn²⁺), with the equivalent weights of 158.038/1 g, 158.038/3 g, and 158.038/5 g, respectively. The number of equivalent weights of any substance dissolved in one litre of solution is called the normality of that solution.