09044 IUPAC Gold Book - gravimetric factor 10.1351/goldbook.09044 09044 current abbrev: GF 1 Mass fraction of analyte in a precipitate (see precipitation) obtained in a gravimetric analysis. Gravimetric factor is calculated by \(g_{\rm{F}} = (M_{\rm{A}}v_{\rm{A}})/(M_{\rm{P}}v_{\rm{P}})\), where \(M_{\rm{A}}\), \(M_{\rm{P}}\) are molar masses of analyte and precipitate, respectively, and \(v_{\rm{A}}\) and \(v_{\rm{P}}\) are the stoichiometric numbers in the precipitation reaction. Historically, the gravimetric factor is given the initialism GF, but to conform to the IUPAC convention that quantities should have a single symbol, it is recommended that \(g_{\rm{F}}\) is used in equations. The gravimetric factor is used to calculate the mass fraction of an analyte in a sample (\(w\)) by \(w = m_{\rm{P}}/m_{\rm{sample}} \times g_{\rm{F}}\), where \(m_{\rm{P}}\) is the mass of precipitate and \(m_{\rm{sample}}\) the mass of sample. Sulfur trioxide (\(M(\ce{SO3}) = \pu{80.0640 g mol-1}\)) is precipitated as barium sulfate (\(M(\ce{BaSO4}) = \pu{233.390 g mol-1}\)), \(\pu{1 mol}\) \(\ce{SO3}\) becomes \(\pu{1 mol}\) \(\ce{BaSO4}\). Therefore, \(g_{\rm{F}} = 80.0640/233.390 = 0.343048\). Disilver oxide (\(M(\ce{Ag2O}) = \pu{231.736 g mol-1}\)) is dissolved and precipitated as silver chloride (\(M(\ce{AgCl}) = \pu{143.321 g mol-1}\)), \(\pu{1 mol}\) of \(\ce{Ag2O}\) becomes \(\pu{2 mol}\) \(\ce{AgCl}\). Therefore, \(g_{\rm{F}} = ½(231.736/143.321) = 0.808451\). gravimetric analysis https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/09043 PAC, 2025, 97, 137. 'Glossary of terms for mass and volume in analytical chemistry (IUPAC Recommendations 2024)' on page 4 (https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2023-0903) https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/09044/html https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/09044/json https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/09044/plain Citation: 'gravimetric factor' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.09044 The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms. If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org . The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using. 2026-05-09T01:33:35+00:00