Limiting Reactants
The limiting reagent
The limiting reagent
In a chemical reaction is a reactant that is totally consumed when the
chemical reaction is completed. The amount of product formed is
limited by this reagent, since the reaction cannot continue without it.
Excess reagents
If one or more other reagents
are present in excess of the
quantities required to react
with the limiting reagent, they
are described as excess
reagents or excess reactants
(sometimes abbreviated as
"xs"), or to be in abundance.
Steps for calculating the limiting reactant
4
• 1) Balance the equation
3
• 2) Convert the given
information into moles 2
• 3) Use stoichiometry for each individual
reactant to find the mass of product
1
produced.
4) The reactant that produces a lesser
amount of product is the limiting
reagent.
Example:
Consider respiration, one of the most common
chemical reactions on earth.
What mass of carbon dioxide forms in the reaction
of 25 grams of glucose with 40 grams of oxygen?
Solution:
When approaching this problem, observe that every 1 mole of
glucose ( C6 H12 O6)
requires 6 moles of oxygen to obtain 6 moles of carbon dioxide
and 6 moles of water.
Step 1: Determine the balanced chemical
equation for the chemical reaction. (The
balanced chemical equation is already
given.)
Step 2: Convert all given information into
moles (most likely, through the use of
molar mass as a conversion factor).
Step 3: Calculate the mole ratio from the
given information. Compare the
calculated ratio to the actual ratio.
a. If all of the 1.25 moles of oxygen were to
be used up, there would need to be
1.25×16
or 0.208 moles of glucose. There is only
0.1388 moles of glucose available which
makes it the limiting reactant.
b. If all of the 0.1388 moles of glucose were
used up, there would need to be 0.1388 x 6 or
0.8328 moles of oxygen. Because there is an
excess of oxygen, the glucose amount is used
to calculate the amount of the products in the
reaction.
Step 4: Use the amount of
limiting reactant to calculate
the amount of CO2 or H2O
produced.
For carbon dioxide produced:
Step 5: If necessary,
calculate how much is left in
excess.
• 1.25 mol - 0.8328 mol =
0.4172 moles of oxygen left
over
