Why PPM is ambiguous?

Ppm is perfectly ambiguous. It can be figured on ratios of mass, volume, number of moles, or mixed units
mass/volume.

So the first question is what "flavor" of ppm are you talking about?

 Gas mixtures are almost always molar ratios.

 Solids are normally mass ratios.
 Liquids (with liquid or solid solute) is where most of the confusion lies.

Ethanol/water mixtures are usually volume ratios, almost everything else is mass/mass (Chemical engineering,
industrial chemicals) or mass/volume (laboratory chemistry).

In liquids, the problem is whether you want mg/kg or mg/L.

It is better to avoid ppm entirely and show the units.

Do you want mg/kg or mg/L? (To convert between them, you need the density of the mixture).

What is the relation between ppm and mg/l ?

Both are concentration units, and tell you how much of something is contained in a quantity of something
else. As the other answers have said, ppm stands for parts per million, and concentrations in ppm tell you how
many units of something are present in 1 million of the same units of mixture.

Despite what others have said, ppm concentrations need not be based on mass units.

For instance, it is common to present the concentrations of gases in parts-per-million by volume, i.e., how
^6
many ml of a gas a present in 10 ml of a mixture of gases.

Similarly, one could present a concentration in terms of micromoles of a substance per mole of mixture, in
which case the result would be expressed in "atomic (or number) parts per million", very similar to the 1 grain
of sand in a million example one of the previous posters gave.

Finally, and as most of the previous posters have assumed, ppm can mean parts mer million by mass, i.e., the
number of micrograms of a substance in a gram of a mixture.

In general, though, you cannot tell without additional information whether "ppm" refers to mass-, volume-, or
atom-based units, or even some other type of units (e.g., the noise in an electronic signal expressed in micro
volts per volt would be in ppm units).

In general, for a given mixture, (ppm by volume) does not equal (ppm by mass) does not equal (atomic
ppm). The key is that the same units are used to express the thing being measured, and the "stuff" it's being
compared against.
In contrast, mg/L has explicitly "mixed" units, in which the substance being measured is expressed in units
(mg, or mass units) that are different from the units used to expressed the quantity of the mixture (L, or
volume units). Now, it is true that 1 litre of water at StandardTemperature & Pressure(STP) has a mass of
1000 grams, and therefore 1 ppm by mass = 1mg/L,

But what if the solution is not an aqueous solution? For instance, 1 mg of Al in 1 litre of molten lead has a
concentration of 1mg/L, but it definitely does not correspond to 1 ppm by mass (or volume or number of
atoms, for that matter).

Furthermore, even for aqueous solutions, it is not true that 1ppm by mass = 1mg/L.

The mass of a saturated 1-litre solution of common table salt is *more* than 10 ^6 grams because the volume
the solution is less than the sum of the volumes of water and solid salt that are mixed to make the solution.
(This effect is called "non-ideal mixing", and the difference between the volume of the mixture and the sum of
the constituent volumes is called the "volume of mixing". It can be positive (rarely) zero or negative. In the
case of table salt, it's negative). That means that a concentration expressed in mg/L will be less that the same
concentration expressed in ppm.

All that having been said, if you want to convert between units of ppm by mass to units of mg/L for a solution,
you need to multiply the ppm measure by the density of the solution (expressed as grams per millilitre or
g/ml): ppm(m) = (microgm solute)/(gm solution)

(microgm solute)/(gm solution) * (gm solution)/(ml solution) =(microgm solute)/(ml solution) = (mg
solute)/(liter solution)

The density of very dilute aqueous solutions is approximately 1 gm/ml, so in that case only, ppm ~ mg/L.

One must be very careful when dealing with concentration units!

A liter of water weighs 1000 grams.

A milligram is one thousandth of a gram or 0.001 gram.

So one milligram, or 0.001 gram, divided by one liter, or 1000 grams, is the same as 1/1,000,000 which is the
definition of part per million......

10 mg per ml = how many ppm

ppm in solutions is mg/L, and there are 1000mL in 1L

Therefore, you have 10,000ppm.

Many resources you find show mg/L the same as ppm, but its not exactly true.

Pure water at standard temperature and pressure has a density of 1 kg/L, therefore:

mg/L = mg/kg = ppm

But that is only true when using pure water at standard temperature and pressure. Any other substance will
have a different density and will not be a direct conversion between mg/L and ppm.

In liquids, the problem is whether you want mg/kg or mg/L.

It is better to avoid ppm entirely and show the units.

Do you want mg/kg or mg/L? (To convert between them, you need the density of the mixture).

http://forum.onlineconversion.com/showthread.php?t=562&page=4

I have dissolved 80mg in 80ml of solvent. then I have taken o.1ml and dissolved in 10ml medium and
similarly 0.5ml of 80ml in to 10ml medium. How much ppm ll be in the medium for 0.1ml and
0.5ml?
For the stock solution 80 mg/80 mL = 1 mg/mL
0.1 mL x 1 mg/mL x 1/10 mL = 0.01 mg/mL
This would be 10 mg/L, commonly taken as 10 ppm

0.5 mL x 1 mg/mL x 1/10 mL = 0.05 mg/mL or 50 ppm