Mass percentage is a way to express the concentration of a component in a solution. It calculates the proportion of a particular substance by comparing its mass to the total mass of the mixture or solution.
Here, a 16% salt solution means that out of every 100 grams of the solution, 16 grams are salt. The remaining 84 grams would be the solvent, typically water. This concept is useful for many applications, including food recipes and chemical formulations.
- It helps in understanding the composition of the solution.
- Easily converted into a fraction for calculations.
For instance, the conversion factor can be written as \( \frac{16g \, \text{salt}}{100g \, \text{solution}} \), meaning there are 16 grams of salt in every 100 grams of total solution. By using the inverse, \( \frac{100g \, \text{solution}}{16g \, \text{salt}} \), we can find the total amount of solution for a given mass of salt.