Conversion from 10 Centiliters to Cubic decimeters

Information about the Centiliter (cL)

The centilitre is a unit of volume equal to one hundredth of a litre, or ten millilitres. Its symbol is cL, and the lower-case cl is also used. Unlike most centi-prefixed units it has a real commercial life, because it happens to be the size that suits drink labelling, and in several countries it is the form printed on almost every bottle.

Drink containers are its main employment. In France, Belgium, Italy and Spain a wine bottle is labelled 75 cL, a beer 33 or 50 cL, a soft drink 33 cL, and a spirits miniature 5 cL. The same containers carry 750 ml and 330 ml in Britain, Germany and most of the English-speaking world, which is why identical bottles appear to bear different numbers depending on where they were filled.

Bar measures follow the same split. A standard spirit serving is 4 cL in France and 2 or 4 cL in Germany and Austria, while Britain pours 25 or 35 millilitres and the United States uses fluid ounces. European cocktail recipes are written in centilitres throughout, so a classic proportion of six parts to three to one appears as 6 cL, 3 cL and 1 cL, which reads more cleanly than the millilitre equivalents.

There is no legal difference between the forms. European Union labelling rules accept millilitres, centilitres and litres, so the choice is a matter of national typographic habit rather than of regulation. Where centilitres are used, the number on a bottle stays between one and a hundred for every ordinary container size, which is exactly the range a prefix is supposed to deliver.

The unit is also easy to picture. Ten millilitres is two teaspoons, a generous mouthful of water, or the dose measure supplied with a bottle of cough syrup. A tablespoon is one and a half centilitres, an espresso is about three, and a wine glass poured to a standard measure is twelve to fifteen.

Converting between systems needs some care because a centilitre falls between the two customary small measures. It is 0.338 United States fluid ounces and 0.352 imperial fluid ounces, so neither reads as a round number, and drink volumes converted between Europe and North America almost always end up rounded rather than exact.

One centilitre equals 10 millilitres, 0.01 litres, about 0.338 US fluid ounces, or about 0.352 imperial fluid ounces.

Information about the Cubic decimeter (dm³)

The cubic decimetre is a unit of volume equal to one thousandth of a cubic metre, written dm³. It is the volume of a cube ten centimetres on each side, and since 1964 it has been the exact definition of the litre. The two are the same quantity, and the choice between them is the clearest example in the whole metric system of a name being chosen for what it does to a calculation.

Chemistry prefers the cubic decimetre for a specific reason. Concentration is written in moles per cubic decimetre, and every other quantity in the same calculation is expressed in metres, kilograms and seconds or their prefixed forms. Keeping volume as a length cubed means the units in an equation cancel by inspection, without anyone having to remember that a litre is a thousandth of a cubic metre.

That is why British and Commonwealth chemistry teaching writes mol dm⁻³ where American teaching writes molar. A one molar solution and a one mole per cubic decimetre solution are identical, but only the second form makes the dimensions visible. Students trained on it can check an answer by looking at the units, which is the most reliable error-catching habit in quantitative chemistry.

Gas volumes follow the same convention. One mole of an ideal gas occupies 22.4 cubic decimetres at zero degrees Celsius and one atmosphere, and about 24.0 cubic decimetres at room temperature, so a reaction stoichiometry converts to a measurable volume in one step. These are among the most quoted numbers in school chemistry, and they are almost always written in dm³ rather than in litres.

Elsewhere the litre wins easily. Nobody buys fuel, milk or paint in cubic decimetres, and no drink label carries the symbol, because the litre name is shorter, older and understood by everyone. The cubic decimetre survives where a formula rather than a customer is reading the number.

The relationship to its neighbours is worth keeping straight because of the cubing. A cubic decimetre holds a thousand cubic centimetres, not a hundred, and a thousand cubic decimetres make a cubic metre. Each step in length is a factor of ten and each step in volume a factor of a thousand, which is the source of most errors made with this unit.

One cubic decimetre equals 1 litre, 1000 cubic centimetres, 0.001 cubic metres, or about 61.02 cubic inches.