Limiting Reactants
Why?
Reactants are not always present in the exact amounts required by the balanced
chemical reaction equation. In planning any cost-effective production process, it is
necessary to recognize which component limits the amount of material that can be
produced. Identifying the limiting reactant in a chemical reaction will strengthen
your skills in dealing with moles, solution concentrations, and reaction
stoichiometry.
Learning Objectives
Determine the amounts of material involved in a reaction.
Identify reactants that limit the extent of a reaction and the amount of
product produced.
Success Criteria
Quick identification of the limiting and excess reactants.
Accuracy of calculations of the amounts of material reacting and being
produced in chemical reactions.
Resources
Olmsted and Williams (Chemistry 3/e, Wiley, 2002) pp. 148-154.
Prerequisites
moles, chemical compounds, chemical reaction equations, determination of
chemical formulas
New Concepts
limiting reactant, excess reactant
Vocabulary
stoichiometry
Definitions
In your own words, write definitions of the terms in the New Concepts and
Vocabulary sections.
Limiting Reactants
Model 1: Limiting Ingredient
A cake recipe calls for
2 cups of water
4 cups of flour
8 squares of chocolate
4 cups of sugar
8 oz of butter
4 eggs
Ingredients on hand
lots of water
5 cups flour
4 cups sugar
12 squares chocolate
16 oz butter
6 eggs
Limiting Reagents
Key Questions
1. According to Model 1, how much of each ingredient is necessary to make a cake?
water
flour
chocolate
sugar
butter
eggs
2. If you follow the recipe, using only the ingredients on hand in the model, how
much of each ingredient will be left over after you have baked the cake?
water
flour
chocolate
sugar
butter
eggs
3. Which of the ingredients on hand were in excess for the recipe?
4. Which of the ingredients on hand were consumed completely in making the cake?
5. Which of the ingredients limit or prevent you from making a second cake?
6. What would be a good definition for the term limiting ingredient?
7. What would be a good procedure or methodology to use for identifying the
limiting component in some manufacturing process? Test your methodology by
applying it to the following exercises.
Limiting Reactants
Exercises
1. You want to make 10 dozen standard-size cookies as specified by a recipe that
requires 16 oz of butter, 4 eggs, 3 cups of flour, and 4 cups of sugar.
In taking inventory of your supplies, you find that you have 16 oz of butter,
6 eggs, and 3 cups each of flour and sugar.
(a) Which ingredient will limit the number of cookies you can make?
(b) How many standard-size cookies can you make?
2. You have 100 bolts, 150 nuts, and 150 washers. You assemble a nut/bolt/washer
set using the following recipe or equation.
2 washers + 1 bolt + 1 nut = 1 set
(a) How many sets can you assemble from your supply?
(b) Which is the limiting component?
3. This reaction of hydrogen with oxygen to produce water is described by the
following recipe or reaction equation, which says that 2 molecules of hydrogen
react with 1 molecule of oxygen to produce 2 molecules of water.
2H2 + O2 = 2H2O
You react 150 H2 molecules with 100 O2 molecules to produce H2O. Which is the
limiting reactant, hydrogen or oxygen? How many water molecules can you
produce from your supply of hydrogen and oxygen?
Limiting Reagents
Model 2: Limiting Reactant in Moles
The reaction equation can be interpreted in terms of the number of molecules
(see Problem 3 above) or moles reacting (2 moles of hydrogen react with 1 mole of
oxygen to produce 2 moles of water). The only difference is that a mole can be
divided into fractions of a mole, a molecule cannot be divided. Each square below
represents one mole of hydrogen, oxygen, and water.
1 mole of H2
1 mole of O2
1 mole of H2O
When these react according to the reaction equation,
2H2 + O2 = 2H2O,
twice as much hydrogen will be used and twice as much water will be produced
when compared to the amount of oxygen that reacts. The diagram below indicates
what happens when 1 mole of hydrogen and 1 mole of oxygen are mixed together
and react to produce water.
Thinking in terms of moles, we could write the reaction equation as
H2 + 1/2 O2 = H2O.
Key Questions
8. How many moles of hydrogen reacted in the above diagram?
9. How many moles of oxygen remained after the reaction?
10. Was hydrogen or oxygen the limiting reactant?
Limiting Reactants
Exercises
4. If 6 moles of hydrogen (H2) and 4 moles of oxygen (O2) are mixed and reacted,
which is the limiting reactant? How many moles of water would be produced?
5. If you had 1.73 moles of hydrogen (H2) and 0.89 moles of oxygen (O2), which is the
limiting reactant? How many moles of water can you produce from your supply of
hydrogen and oxygen?
6. If you had 17.3 g of hydrogen and 8.91 g of oxygen, which is the limiting reactant,
and how many grams of water could you produce?
Problems
1. Cisplatin is an antitumor agent. It has the molecular formula Pt(NH3)2Cl2. How
many grams of cisplatin can be produced if the limiting reactant is 1 kg of
platinum?
2. Hydrogen cyanide is used in the production of cyanimid fertilizers. It is produced
by the following reaction. (a) How much hydrogen cyanide can be produced
starting with 100 kg of each of the reactants? (b) Which is the limiting reactant?
2 CH4 + 2 NH3 + 3 O2 2 HCN + 6 H2O
