The mole, amount of substance and primary methods

This paper is an introduction to the principles developed for the application of metrology to the field of chemistry and particularly to analytical chemistry. It starts with a discussion of the mole, the base unit of the SI that is most relevant to analytical chemistry. The mole has become the subject of particular discussion recently, since the publication of proposals to re-define it along with three other base units of the SI. This discussion has also generated interest in the origin of the term 'amount of substance' used as the quantity for which the mole is the unit. This paper reviews the origin of this term and explains why it is not sufficient to replace it with an alternative such as a 'number of entities'. The paper concludes with some discussion of how the mole is realized through the use of primary methods of measurement.