Handbook - McDalton Professional Edition

How to use

In this program there are not drawn up any special rules for typing chemical formulas. Just type them as you normally do. Please use proper capitalisation. For example Co means Cobalt while CO means Carbon and Oxygen. Numbers will automatically be shown in subscript except when used for crystal water. You may use multiple levels of brackets. Some examples of typing are

  • H2O for Water
  • CuSO4*5H2O for Copper sulfate pentahydrate
  • Mg(OH)2 for Magnesium hydroxide

Press the Enter button for the calculations to start.

The uncertainty displayed is the absolute maximum error of the result always rounded up to one significant figure. It is rounded up because otherwise it may occur as underestimated. The mass is rounded to the same absolute accuracy as in the uncertainty displayed. All calculations are shown if the mouse is paused over the values.

By recommendation of The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, IUPAC, atomic weights of the elements are taken from the most recent review Atomic weights of the elements 2007, published in Pure Appl. Chem. 78(11), 2051-2066, 2006 and Aug 2007 release. If you enter the formula of just one element the recommended atomic weight is displayed together with the recommended uncertainty. Some elements have no stable nuclides. For these the nuclide with the longest half-life is selected and the uncertainty is set to 9 in the last decimal. It is probably of no practical importance.

The first m in this program’s icon represents mass and the second m, written subscripted, represents molar. It is not common to represent molar mass that way. Molar mass is by convention represented by M.

License agreement

Except where otherwise noted, all documentation and software included in the McDalton Professional Edition package is copyrighted by Dr. Christer Svensson.

Copyright (©) 2002-2008 Dr. Christer Svensson. All rights reserved.

This software is provided "as-is," without any express or implied warranty. In no event shall the author be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software.