Limiting Reactants:

In today's class we learned how to determine the Limiting Reactant (L.R.)

- In chemical reactants, usually one chemical gets used up before the other
- the chemical used up first is called the limiting reactants
- one it is used up the reaction stops
- L.R. Determines the quantity of products formed
-To find the L.R. assume one reactant is used up. Determine how much of the reactant is required

e.g. 2.5 mol of CuSO4 reacts 2.5 mol of NaNO3. Determine the L.R. and calculate how many moles of NaSO4 are formed.

CuSO4+ 2NaNO3 > NaSO4 + Cu(NO3)2

2.5 mol x 2/1 = 5.0 mol NaNO3
soo the L.R> is NaNO3

2.5 mol x 1/2 = 1.25mol Na2SO4