The limiting reactant is the substance that will be used up first in a chemical reaction, and it determines the amount of product that can be produced. A balanced equation can help determine the proportion of each reactant needed, and knowing the number of moles of each substance is necessary to determine the limiting reactant.
When a chemist wants to make a certain amount of a product, he needs to know how much of each chemical reagent to use. Similarly, if he has a certain amount of reactant, it can be helpful to find out how much product he will be able to make with it. In chemistry, one of the factors a chemist will need to know in order to produce or determine the amount of product he can produce is the limiting reactant. The limiting reactant, also called the limiting reactant, limits the amount of product that can be produced in a reaction: once this reactant is consumed, the reaction will stop. It is important, therefore, that the chemist know how to determine which reactant is the limiting reactant and ensure that he has enough to produce the desired amount of product.
The limiting reactant is the reactant that will be exhausted first as the reaction progresses. When the limiting reagent is used up, the reaction will cease. Any chemical or substance has the potential to be a limiting reactant. To determine which reactant is the limiting one, the chemist will need to determine how much of each substance it has. He will also need to know what proportion of each reactant the reaction needs to continue the desired amount of time.
A balanced equation can help a scientist know the proportion of each reactant. A balanced equation is one that reflects the law of conservation: nothing is created or destroyed during the reaction. In other words, there are as many atoms on one side of the equation as there are on the other. For example, the balanced equation for making water is 2 H2 + O2 = 2 H2O. It is clear here that we need twice as many hydrogen atoms as oxygen atoms to make water.
Before a scientist can determine which reactant is the limiting reactant, he must know how many moles of each substance it has. One mole is equal to approximately 6.02 x 1023 units of the substance and weighs as much as the molecular weight of that substance. For example, since the molecular weight of hydrogen is about 2 grams, one mole of hydrogen molecules would also weigh about 2 grams and would be approximately equal to 6.02 x 1023 hydrogen molecules. Similarly, the molecular weight of oxygen, about 32 grams, is approximately equal to one mole of oxygen molecules. So if the chemist has two grams of hydrogen and 32 grams of oxygen, he knows he has about one mole of each substance.
Once the chemist has the correct balanced equation and knows how much of each reactant he has, he can then determine which reactant is the limiting reactant. For example, if the scientist determines that he has one mole of hydrogen and one mole of oxygen, hydrogen would be the limiting reactant. According to the balanced equation to make water, you can see that it takes twice as many moles of hydrogen atoms as it takes oxygen atoms to make water. In other words, each oxygen atom needs two hydrogen atoms to make water. The hydrogen would be used up before the oxygen, and once that happens, the reaction would stop.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
