Amount of substance Amount of substance Amount of substance is a standard-defined quantity that measures the size of an ensemble of particles, such as atoms, molecules, electrons, and other particles. It is sometimes referred to as chemical amount. The International System of Units (SI) defines the amount of substance to be proportional to the number of entities present. The SI unit for amount of substance is the mole. It has the unit symbol mol. The proportionality constant is the inverse of the Avogadro constant. The mole is defined as the amount of substance that contains an equal number of elementary entities as there
International unit International unit In pharmacology, the international unit is a unit of measurement for the amount of a substance; the mass or volume that constitutes one international unit varies based on which substance is being measured, and the variance is based on the biological activity or effect, for the purpose of easier comparison across substances. International units are used to quantify vitamins, hormones, some medications, vaccines, blood products, and similar biologically active substances. The name international unit has often been capitalized (in English and other languages), although major English-language dictionaries treat it as a common noun and thus use lower case.