Stoichiometry Page 1 of 10

Stoichiometry
Stoichiometry is the accounting, or math, behind chemistry. Given enough information, one can use stoichiometry to
calculate masses, moles, and percents within a chemical equation.
What is a Chemical Equation
The Mole
Balancing Chemical Equations
HOME Limiting Reagents
Percent Composition
Course Chapters Empirical and Molecular Formulas
Density
Concentrations of Solutions
Calculator
Fundamentals
What is a chemical equation?
Mathematics
Review In chemistry, we use symbols to represent the various chemicals. Success in chemistry depends upon developing a
strong familiarity with these basic symbols. For example, the symbol "C" represents an atom of carbon, and "H"
Basic Concepts represents an atom of hydrogen. To represent a molecule of table salt, sodium chloride, we would use the notation
"NaCl", where "Na" represents sodium and "Cl" represents chlorine. We call chlorine "chloride" in this case because
λ Chemical of its connection to sodium. You should have reviewed naming schemes, or nomenclature, in earlier readings.
Nomenclature
(REQUIRED A chemical equation is an expression of a chemical process. For example:
FOR
CREDIT!) AgNO3(aq) + NaCl(aq) ---> AgCl (s) + NaNO3(aq)
λ Atomic
Structure
λ Stoichiometry In this equation, AgNO3 is mixed with NaCl. The equation shows that the reactants (AgNO3 and NaCl) react
λ Acid Base through some process (--->) to form the products (AgCl and NaNO3). Since they undergo a chemical process, they
Chemistry are changed fundamentally.

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are changed fundamentally.

Advanced Concepts Often chemical equations are written showing the state that each substance is in. The (s) sign means that t he
compound is a solid. The (l) sign means the substance is a liquid. The (aq) sign stands for aqueous in water and
Section Tests means the compound is dissolved in water. Finally, the (g) sign mean s that the compound is a gas.

Pre-test Coefficients are used in all chemical equations to show the relative amounts of each substance present. This amount
can represent either the relative number of molecules, or the relative number of moles (described below). If no
Post-test coefficient is shown, a one (1) is assumed.

Useful Materials On some occasions, a variety of information will be written above or below the arrows. This information, such as a
value for temperature, shows what conditions need to be present for a reaction to occur. For example, in the graphic
Glossary below, the notation above and below the arrows shows that we need a chemical Fe2O3, a temperature of 1000
degrees C, and a pressure of 500 atmospheres for this reaction to occur.
Online Calculators
The graphic below works to capture most of the concepts described above:
Redox Calculator

Kinetics Arrhenius
Calculator

Thermodynamics
Calculator

Nuclear Decay
Calculator

Linear Least
Squares Regression

Newton's Method
Equation Solver

Compressibility
Calculator

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Units Conversion
Calculator

Nomenclature
Calculator

Related
Information Links

Texas Instruments The Mole

Calculators
Given the equation above, we can tell the number of moles of reactants and products. A mole simply represents
Casio Calculators 23) of molecules. A mole is similar to a term like a dozen. If you have a dozen
Avogadro's number (6.023 x 10
Sharp Calculators carrots, you have twelve of them. Similarily, if you have a mole of carrots, you have 6.023 x 1023 carrots. In the
equation above there are no numbers in front of the terms, so each coefficient is assumed to be one (1). Thus, you
Hewlett Packard have the same number of moles of Ag NO3, NaCl, AgCl, NaNO3.
Calculators
Converting between moles and grams of a substance is often important. This conversion can be easily done when the
Credits atomic and/or molecular weights of the substance(s) are known. Given the atomic or molecular weight of a
substance, that mass in grams makes a mole of the substance. For example, calcium has an atomic weight of 40
Contact Webmaster atomic mass units. So, 40 grams of calcium makes one mole, 80 grams makes two moles, etc.

Balancing Chemical Equations

Sometimes, however, we have to do some work before using the coefficients of the Example: A chemist only has 6.0
grams of C2H2 and an unlimitted supply of oxygen and desires to produce as much CO2 as possible. If she uses the
equation below, how much oxygen should she add to the reaction?

2C2H2(g) + 5O2(g) ---> 4CO2(g) + 2 H2O(l)

To solve this problem, it is necessary to determine how much oxygen should be added if all of the reactants were
used up (this is the way to produce the maximum amount of CO2).

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First, we calculate the number of moles of C2H2 in 6.0 grams of C2H2. To be able to calculate the moles we need to
look at a periodic table and see that 1 mole of C weighs 12.0 grams and H weighs 1.0 gram. Therefore we know that
1 mole of C2H2 weighs 26 grams (2*12 grams + 2*1 gram).

Then, because there are five (5) molecules of oxygen to every two (2) molecules of C2H2, we need to multiply the
result by 5/2 to get the total molecules of oxygen. Then we convert to grams to find the amount of oxygen that needs
to be added:

Percent Composition
It is possible to calculate the mole ratios (also called mole fractions) between terms in a chemical equation when
given the percent by mass of products or reactants.

percentage by mass = mass of part/ mass of whole

There are two types of percent composition problems-- problems in which you are given the formula (or the weight
of each part) and asked to calculate the percentage of each element and problems in which you are given the
percentages and asked to calculate the formula.

In percent composition problems, there are many possible solutions. It is always possible to double the answer. For
example, CH and C2H2 have the same proportions, but they are different compounds. It is standard to give
compounds in their simplest form, where the ratio between the elements is as reduced as it can be-- called the
empirical formula. When calculating the empirical formula from percent composition, one can convert the
percentages to grams. For example, it is usually the easiest to assume you have 100 grams so 54.3% would become
54.3 grams. Then we can convert the masses to moles which gives us mole ratios. It is necessary to reduce to whole
numbers. A good technique is to divide all the terms by the smallest number of moles. Then the ratio of the moles
can be transfered to write the empirical formula.

Example: If a compound is 47.3% C (carbon), 10.6% H (hydrogen) and 42.0% S (sulfur), what is its empirical

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formula?
To do this problem we need to transfer all of our percents to masses. We assume that we have 100 g of this
substance. Then we convert to moles:

Now we try to get an even ratio between the elements so we divide by the number of moles of sulfur, because it is
the smallest number:

So we have: C3H8 S

Example: Figure out the percentage by mass of hydrogen sulfate, H2SO4.

In this problem we need to first calculate the total weight of the compound by looking at the periodic table. This
gives us:
2(1.008) + 32.07 + 4(16.00) grams/mol = 98.09 g/mol
Now, we need to take the weight fraction of each element over the total mass (which we just found) and multiply by
100 to get a percentage.

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Now, we can check that the percentages add up to 100%

65.2 + 2.06 + 32.7 = 99.96
This is essentially 100 so we know that everything has worked, and we probably have not made any careless errors.
So the answer is that H2SO4 is made up of 2.06% H, 32.7% S, and 65.2% O by mass.

Empirical Formula and Molecular Formula

While the empirical formula is the simplest form of a compound, the molecular formula is the form of the term as it
would appear in a chemical equation. The empirical formula and the molecular formula can be the same, or the
molecular formula can be any positive integer multiple of the empirical formula. Examples of empirical formulas:
AgBr, Na2S, C6H10O5. Examples of molecular formulas: P2, C2O4, C6H14S2, H2, C3H9.

One can calculate the empirical formula from the masses or percentage composition of any compound. We have
already discussed percent composition in the section above. If we only have mass, all we are doing is essentially
eliminating the step of converting from percentage to mass.

Example: Calculate the empirical formula for a compound that has 43.7 g P (phosphorus) and 56.3 grams of oxygen.
First we convert to moles:

Next we divide the moles to try to get a even ratio.

When we divide, we did not get whole numbers so we must multiply by two (2). The answer=P2O5

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Calculating the molecular formula once we have the empirical formula is easy. If we know the empirical formula of
a compound, all we need to do is divide the molecular mass of the compound by the mass of the empirical formula.
It is also possible to do this with one of the elements in the formula; simply divide the mass of that element in one
mole of compound by the mass of that element in the empirical formula. The result should always be a natural
number.

Example: if we know that the empirical formula of a compound is HCN and we are told that a 2.016 grams of
hydrogen are necesary to make the compound, what is the molecular formula? In the empirical formula hydrogen
weighs 1.008 grams. Dividing 2.016 by 1.008 we see that the amount of hydrogen needed is twice as much.
Therefore the empirical formula needs to be increased by a factor of two (2). The answer is:
H2C2N2.

Density
Density refers to the mass per unit volume of a substance. It is a very common term in chemistry.

Concentrations of Solutions
The concentration of a solution is the "strength" of a solution. A solution typically refers to the dissolving of some
solid substance in a liquid, such as dissolving salt in water. It is also often necessary to figure out how much water to
add to a solution to change it to a specific concentration.

The concentration of a solution is typically given in molarity. Molarity is defined as the number of moles of solute
(what is actually dissolved in the solution) divided by the liters of solution (the total volume of what is dissolved and
what it has been dissolved in).

Molarity is probably the most commonly used term because measuring a volume of liquid is a fairly easy thing to do.

Example: If 5.00 grams of NaOH are dissolved in 5000 mL of water, what is the molarity of the solution?
One of our first steps is to convert the amount of NaOH given in grams into moles:

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Now we simply use the definition of molarity: moles/liters to get the answer

So the molarity (M) of the solution is 0.025 mol/L.

Molality is another common measurement of concentration. Molality is defined as moles of solute divided by
kilograms of solvent (the substance in which it is dissolved, like water).

Molality is sometimes used in place of molarity at extreme temperatures because the volume can contract or expand.

Example: If the molality of a solution of C2H5OH dissolved in water is 1.5 and the weight of the water is 11.7 kg,
figure out how much C2H5OH must have been added in grams to the solution?
Our first step is to substitute what we know into the equation. Then we try to solve for what we don't know: moles of
solute. Once we know the moles of solute we can look at the periodic table and figure out the conversion from moles
to grams.

It is possible to convert between molarity and molality. The only information needed is density.

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Example: If the molarity of a solution is 0.30 M, calculate the molality of the solution knowing that the density is
3.25 g/mL.
To do this problem we can assume one (1) liter of solution to make the numbers easier. We need to get from the
molarity units of mols/Liter to the molality units of mols/kg. We work the problem as follows, remembering that
there are 1000 mL in a Liter and 1000 grams in a kg. This conversion will only be accurate at small molarities and
molalities.

It is also possible to calculate colligative properties, such as boiling point depression, using molality. The equation
for temperature depression or expansion is

Change in T= K * m

Where: T is temperature depression (for freezing point) or temperature expansion (for boiling point) (°C)
K is the freezing point constant (kg °C/moles)
m is molality in moles/kg

Example: If the freezing point of the salt water put on roads is -5.2 C, what is the molality of the solution? (The Kf
for water is 1.86 C/m.)
This is a simple problem where we just plug in numbers into the equation. One piece of information we do have to
know is that water usually freezes at 00C.

T=K * m
T/K= m
m = 5.2/1.86
m = 2.8 mols/kg

Practice Problems
1. If only 0.25 molar NaOH and water are available, how much NaOH needs to be added to make 10 liters of 0.2
molar solution of NaOH?

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Check your work

2. If 2.0 moles of sucrose weighing 684 grams is put in 1000 grams of water and is then dissolved, what would be
the molality of the solution?
Check your work.

3. If you have a 0.25 molar solution of benzene with a density of 15 grams/liter, calculate the molality of the
solution.
Check your work

4. If the density of mercury is 13.534 g/cm2 and you have 62.5 cm3 of mercury, how many grams, moles, and atoms
of mercury do you have? (Mercury has a mass of 200.6 g/mol.)
Check your work

[Basic Index] [Atomic Structure] [Stoichiometry] [Acid Base Chemistry] [Nomenclature]

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