What is the difference between concentration and density?
The concentration and density relationship tends to give students a difficult time when it comes to the revision of their exams in physical science.
The core difference between concentration and density is that concentration describes how much a substance is found in a mixture while density describes the mass of a material per unit volume.
What Is Concentration?
Concentration refers to the amount of a substance in a mixture or solution. Concentration can be grouped as mass concentration and molar concentration.
Mass concentration is the mass of a given compound in a unit volume. Molar concentration is the number of moles in a given compound in a unit volume.
What Is Density?
Density simply refers to mass per unit volume. The density of a substance helping to tell which substance is heavier than the other.
The floatation of a substance can easily be described by the concept of density. For instance, water in the Dead Sea is so dense hence someone can easily float on it.
Comparison Chart: Concentration Vs Density
| Basic Terms | Concentration | Density |
| Meaning | It refers to how much of a substance is found in a mixture | It is the measure of mass per unit volume |
| Determining Factors | Depend on the amount of matter and the compound | Depend on the amount of matter within a given volume |
| Substance | Suitable for solutions | Suitable for all phases of matter |
| Nature of property | Homogenous property | Heterogeneous and homogenous property |
| SI Units | Mol/dm3 | Kg/m3 |
Core Differences between Density and Concentration
- Concentration represents how much of a substance is in a mixture or solution while density represent the mass per unit volume of a substance
- Concentration can be determined by the amount of matter and compound while density by mass per unit volume
- Concentration occurs in substance in solutions while density to all phases of matter
- Concentration has homogenous property while density has both heterogeneous and homogenous properties.
- The SI unit of concentration is mol/dm3 while that of density is kg/m3.
Read More: Difference between Static and Dynamic Equilibrium
Comparison Video
Summary
The main difference between density and concentration is that density is the mass of material per unit volume while concentration is how much of a substance is present in a mixture.