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When you don’t have enough of one reactant, the whole chemical reaction will stop after
using up that limited amount of reactant. In other words, the limiting reagent will limit the
amount of product produced. In the same reaction, the other reactant will be the excess
reagent since there will be more of it to run the reaction.
+ =
“Balanced Chemical Reaction”: 1 Handlebar + 2 Wheels = 1 Bike
When you calculate the mass or moles of a product from your limiting reagent in some
reaction, you are calculating the amount you could produce. (this is your theoretical
yield) When you run this reaction in a lab, you will likely produce a lesser amount of
product when compared to your theoretical yield. (this is your experimental yield) To
find out how much of your theoretical yield you produced in your experiment, you use
the above formula. (This is your percent yield)
Problem 1: You react 3.25 g of NH3 with 3.5 g of O2. Identify your limiting/excess
reactant and theoretical yield.
1. Balance Reaction
2. Calculate amount (mass) of product from each reactant (if there’s more than one
product, use one throughout your calculations)
Because our given amount of O2 produces the least amount of product (NO), O 2 is our limiting
reagent. So, N
H3 must be our excess reagent. Now that you know your limiting reagent, the
amount of product produced from O2 (2.63g NO) is the theoretical yield
2.63g NO(1mol NO/30.01g NO)(4mol NH3/4mol NO)(17.03g/1mol NH3 )= 1.49g NH3
b. Subtract your starting amount of the excess reagent by how much you
actually needed to determine how much is left over
5. If you ran this reaction and obtained 2.25g NO, what is your percent yield?