Amount of substance in use in chemical engineering in the United States is the pound-mole, having the symbol lb-mol. One pound-mole is . When quoting an amount of substance, it is necessary to specify the entity involved, unless there is no risk of ambiguity. One mole of chlorine could refer either to chlorine atoms, as in 58.44 g of sodium chloride, or to chlorine molecules, as in 22.711 liters of chlorine gas at STP. The simplest way to avoid ambiguity is to replace the term "substance" by the name of the entity or to quote the empirical formula. For example: Amount of substance
Chemical compound of atoms (chemical elements) in a fixed stoichiometric proportion can be termed a "chemical compound"; the concept is most readily understood when considering pure chemical substances. It follows from their being composed of fixed proportions of two or more types of atoms that chemical compounds can be converted, via chemical reaction, into compounds or substances each having fewer atoms. The ratio of each element in the compound is expressed in a ratio in its chemical formula. A chemical formula is a way of expressing information about the proportions of atoms that constitute a particular chemical compound, using the standard abbreviations