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The Mass Spectrometer

A mass spectrometer can be used to experimentally measure the percentage abundances of isotopes in a sample of an element. This can be used to calculate the relative atomic mass of an element.The relative atomic mass is the weighted mean mass of all the isotopes of an element compared to 1/12th the mass of a carbon-12 atom.The weighted mean mass is the sum of the percentage abundances of each isotope in a naturally occurring sample multiplied by the relative isotopic mass of the isotope.

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Specification: AQA Chemistry (7404), AS-level, 3.1.1.2 Mass number and isotopes. Topic: Atomic Structure.

Key terms in this lesson

Isotopes
Atoms of the same element with the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons.
Relative isotopic mass
The mass of an isotope of an element compared to 1/12th the mass of a carbon-12 atom.
Relative atomic mass
The weighted mean mass of an atom of an element compared to 1/12th the mass of a carbon-12 atom.

More in Atomic Structure

All 22 lessons in Atomic Structure · All AQA AS-level Chemistry topics