CHEMISTRY GLOSSARY

Beer’s law (or Beer-Lambert law) is the functional relationship between the quantity measured in an absorption method (A) and the quantity sought, the analyte concentration (c). As a consequence of interactions between the photons and absorbing particles, the power of the beam is attenuated from P_o to P. Beer’s law can be written

where A is the absorbance at a given wavelength of light, ε is the molar absorbtivity or extinction coefficient (L mol^-1 cm^-1), unique to each molecule and varying with wavelength, b is the length of light path through the sample (cm), and c is the concentration of the compound in solution (mol L^-1).