Da\text{Da}

dalton (as molar mass)

Molar mass

The dalton, used as a molar mass, is 1.00000000105 × 10⁻³ kg/mol. Strictly the dalton is a unit of MASS, one twelfth of a carbon-12 atom, but a species of molecular mass m daltons has a molar mass of numerically m grams per mole, and biochemistry uses the two interchangeably.

Watch out: That leftover is one part in a billion and matters to nobody outside metrology, but it is the reason this entry is not exact. What does matter is remembering that Da is a mass: a 50 kDa protein has a mass of 8.3 × 10⁻²⁰ g, and only its molar mass is 50 kg/mol.

1 Da\text{Da} 1 g/mol\text{g/mol}
Where the unit came from

The equivalence used to be exact by definition: before 2019 the mole was defined as the number of atoms in 12 g of carbon-12, which forced the molar mass constant to be exactly 1 g/mol. The 2019 redefinition fixed the Avogadro constant instead, so the constant became a measured quantity of 1.00000000105 g/mol.

One dalton (as molar mass) in every molar mass unit

1gram per mole (g/mol)
1kilogram per kilomole (kg/kmol)
1milligram per millimole (mg/mmol)
1pound per pound-mole (lb/lb-mol)
1dalton (as molar mass) (Da)this unit
0.001kilogram per mole (kg/mol)
0.001kilodalton (as molar mass) (kDa)