a section of Chemistry that

involves using relationships

between reactants and/or products
in a chemical reaction to determine
desired quantitative data
stoikhein (element)
metron (measure)
Stoichiometry “measure of
elements
The MOLE is the amount of substance
of a system which contains as many
elementary entities as there are atoms
in 0.012 kilogram of carbon 12; its
symbol is “mol”.
It’s a classic conundrum:
We have five hot dogs and four hot dog buns. How
many complete hot dogs sandwich can we make?
If hot dogs and buns combine in a 1:1 ratio, we can
make four complete hot dogs.
Once we run out of buns, we'll have to stop making
complete hot dogs.
In other words, the hot dog buns limit the number of
complete hot dogs we can produce.
In much the same way, a reactant in a chemical
reaction can limit the amounts of products
formed by the reaction.
When this happens, we refer to the reactant as
the limiting reactant (or limiting reagent). The
amount of a product that is formed when the
limiting reactant is fully consumed in a reaction
is known as the theoretical yield.

In the case of our hot dog example, we already

determined the theoretical yield (four complete
hot dogs) based on the number of hot dogs buns
we were working with.
How many peanut butter sandwiches could be made
from 8 slices bread and 1 jar of peanut butter?

With 8 slices of bread, only 4 sandwiches could be

made. The bread is the limiting item.
The buns, slices of cheese, leaves of lettuce, and 5
pieces of burger meat are all reacting to produce
burgers.
Assuming you use one of each to make a burger, the
limiting reagent will be the lettuce leaves.
The "reaction" will produce 3 burgers - the amount
determined by the limiting reagent - and have 1 bun, 3
slices of cheese, and 2 pieces of meat in excess.
If you want to put tires on cars and you have 8 cars with
no wheels and 48 tires, then cars will be your limiting
reagent as you need 4 tires per car. You will places tires
on all of the cars and then when all of the cars have
tires, if there are excess tires, then the cars are the
limiting reagent as shown below.
 REACTANT PRODUCT
Nitrogen (N) 2 1
Hydrogen (H) 2 3

REACTANT PRODUCT
Nitrogen (N) 2 (1) = 2 1(2) = 2
Hydrogen (H) 2 (3) = 6 3 (2) = 6
 REACTANT PRODUCT
Potassium (K) 1 1
Chloride (Cl) 1 1
Oxygen (O) 3 2

REACTANT PRODUCT
Potassium (K) 1 (2) = 2 1 (2) = 2
Chloride (Cl) 1 (2) = 2 1 (2) = 2
Oxygen (O) 3 (2) = 6 2 (3) = 6
4(1) + 3(2) =10

4(1) + 3(2) =10