Quarter 1 –
Module 10:
Limiting
Reactants and
the Amount of
Products Formed
Chemical equations give the ideal
stoichiometric relationship among
reactants and products.
However, sometimes the amount of reactants
used are not mixed in exact or proper ratio.
Thus, there are instances that some reactant
will be excess and the others will be
completely used up.
In a chemical reaction, reactants that are not
used up when the reaction is finished are
called excess reagents.
The reagent that is completely used up or
reacted is called the limiting reagent,
Figure shows the parts of chemical
reaction. We have two elements in the
reactant side that will undergo
chemical reaction to produce a
product: A + B → AB.
An example of a synthesis reaction is
the combination of two molecules of H
and two molecules of Oxygen gas to
produce one molecule of water.
Chemical reaction deals with
the process that involves
rearrangement of the
molecular or ionic structure of
a substance, as opposed to a
change in physical form or a
nuclear reaction.
A chemical equation shows the
starting compound(s)—
the reactants—on the left and
the final compound(s)—the products
—on the right, separated by an arrow.
In a balanced chemical equation, the
numbers of atoms of each element
and the total charge are the same on
both sides of the equation.
For example: The figure shows the combustion of
hydrocarbons like CH4 (methane) will produce carbon dioxide
and water
Key Terms
• Stoichiometry is a section of chemistry that
involves using relationships between reactants
and/or products in a chemical reaction to
determine desired quantitative data.
• Excess reagent is a reactant that is not
used up when the reaction is finished.
• Limiting reagent is a reagent that is
completely used up or reacted.
The more moles of reaction you have,
the more times the reaction can occur.
Therefore, the reactant with fewer
moles of reaction is the limiting
reagent since the reaction can be
carried out fewer times with that
reactant.
We see that this method also Cl2 is our
limiting reagent because it makes
2.00×10−2mol-rxn, which is less than
Since percent yield is a percentage, you would
normally expect to have a percent yield
between zero and 100. If your percent yield is
greater than 100, that probably means you
calculated or measured something incorrectly.
Example 3. Calculating theoretical and percent
yield For example, the decomposition of
magnesium carbonate (MgCO3) forms 15
grams of magnesium oxide (MgO) in an
experiment. The theoretical yield is known to
be 19 grams. What is the percent yield of
magnesium oxide (MgO)?
First, we check to see if the reaction is balanced. It
looks like we have equal numbers of all atoms on both
sides, so now we can move on to calculating the
theoretical yield. The calculation is simple if you know
the actual and theoretical yields. All you need is
substitute the values into the formula: percent yield =
15 g / 19 g x 100% percent yield = 79% Usually, you
have to calculate the theoretical yield based on the
balanced equation. In this equation, the reactant and
the product have a 1:1 mole ratio, so if you know the
amount of reactant, you know the theoretical yield is
the same value in moles (not grams!). You take the
number of grams of reactant you have, convert it to
