Physical Science

Quarter 1 – Module 10:

Limiting Reactants and the
Amount of Products Formed
 What I Need to Know

This module was designed and written with you in mind. It is here to help you to use
the stoichiometric calculation to determine excess and limiting reactants in a chemical
reaction. Also, it helps you to understand on how to perform calculation in product
formation. The scope of this module permits it to be used in many different learning
situations. The language used recognizes the diverse vocabulary level of students. The
lessons are arranged to follow the standard sequence of the course. But the order in
which you read them can be changed to correspond with the textbook you are now
using.

After going through this module, you are expected to:

1. recall the meaning of chemical reactions, products and reactants;
2. review how to balance equations of chemical reactions;
3. recall the possible conversions in chemical reactions;
4. analyze a chemical reaction in order to determine which reactant is
the limiting reactant and which is the excess reactant;
5. calculate the theoretical yield of a reaction when the available
amounts of each reactant are known; and
6. calculate the percent yield of a reaction based on the theoretical and
actual yields.

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Lesson Physical Sciences: Limiting
1 Reactants and the Amount
of Products Formed

Chemical equations give the ideal stoichiometric relationship among reactants and
products. However, sometimes the amount of reactants used are not mixed in exact
or proper ratio. Thus, there are instances that some reactant will be excess and the
others will be completely used up. In a chemical reaction, reactants that are not used
up when the reaction is finished are called excess reagents. The reagent that is
completely used up or reacted is called the limiting reagent, because its quantity limits
the amount of products formed.

Fig 1

Figure shows the parts of chemical reaction. We have two

elements in the reactant side that will undergo chemical
reaction to produce a product: A + B → AB. An example of a
synthesis reaction is the combination of two molecules of H
and two molecules of Oxygen gas to produce one molecule of
water.

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 What’s In

Chemical reaction deals with the process that involves rearrangement of the molecular
or ionic structure of a substance, as opposed to a change in physical form or a
nuclear reaction.

A chemical equation shows the starting compound(s)—the reactants—on the left

and the final compound(s)—the products—on the right, separated by an arrow. In a
balanced chemical equation, the numbers of atoms of each element and the total
charge are the same on both sides of the equation.

For example:

The figure shows the combustion of hydrocarbons like CH 4 (methane) will produce
carbon dioxide and water.

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 What’s New

Key Terms
• Stoichiometry is a section of chemistry that involves using relationships
between reactants and/or products in a chemical reaction to determine
desired quantitative data.
• Excess reagent is a reactant that is not used up when the reaction is finished.
• Limiting reagent is a reagent that is completely used up or reacted.

Activity 1: Sweet Balance

In this activity, you will be introduced to simple stoichiometry. Stoichiometry is the
chemical term to describe calculations that allow us to find the amounts of chemicals
involved in each reaction.

In stoichiometry, you must always start with a balanced equation. We will use the
following balanced material (equation):

2 EG + 1 EP →1 ToTa
Where: EG= egg
EP = eggplant ToTa= Tortang Talong

1. Notice that to make this recipe you have three pieces (reactant) to the left of the arrow
and one piece (product) to the right. This is supposed to represent a balanced
equation, so how can 3 = 1?

It’s because the pieces combine to form one whole. This would represent a
synthesis reaction.

2. If each student is to make one Tortang Talong, and I have 20 students, how much
of each ingredient will I need? Explain your logic – using a chemical equation.

2 EG + 1 EP →1 ToTa (Use the ratio of the coefficients)

40 20 20

Let's look at a simplified view of the Tortang Talong example. She starts out with
six Eggs and four Eggplant.

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3 6

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Let’s ask Professor F:

Hi there, let me help you!

The correct answer is THREE. WHY?
The six eggs would require three eggplant to make three Tortang
Talong.

Which of the two ingredients run out first? Answer: Egg

Since she has four eggplant (a greater supply than what is needed), the egg will
limit the number of Tortang Talong she can make.

Alternatively, you could look at the number of eggs that would be needed.

Suppose wanted to make Tortang Talong using the available ingredients

earlier, how many graham crackers would I need if I have four Eggplant?
Great, the four eggplant would require eight eggs to make four
4
8
1
Tortang Talong.

Since there are only six eggs (a supply less than what is needed),
the eggs will limit the number of tortang talong she can make.

You can see that the conclusion reached was the same
regardless of the ingredient (or reactant) chosen.

Let’s Try This!

We have five hot dogs and four hot dog buns. How many complete
hot dogs can we make?

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 What is It

PROBLEM SOLVING TIP:

The first and most important step for any stoichiometric calculation—
such as finding the limiting reagent or theoretical yield—is to start
with a balanced reaction. Since our calculations use ratios based on
the stoichiometric coefficients, our answers will be
incorrect if the stoichiometric coefficients are not right.

Here are the steps on how to balance a chemical equation:

Step 1: Count the number of atoms of each element in the reactants and the products.
List each element and how many atoms are there in the reactants and products side.

Example:
𝐻𝐶𝑙 + 𝑁𝑎2𝑆 → 𝐻2𝑆 + 𝑁𝑎𝐶𝑙

Reactant Product
H 1 H 2
Cl 1 Cl 1
Na 2 Na 1
S 1 S 1

Step 2:

1.
Example 1: Finding the limiting reagent

For the following reaction, what is the limiting reagent if we

start with 2.80g of Al (Aluminum) and 4.25g of Cl (Chlorine)?

2𝐴𝑙 + 3𝐶𝑙2(𝑔) → 2𝐴𝑙𝐶𝑙3(𝑠)

First, let’s check if our reaction is balanced: we have two Al atoms and six Cl atoms on
both sides of the arrow, so we are good to go! In this problem, we know the massof
both reactants, and we would like to know which one will get used up first. In the
first step, we will convert everything to moles, and then we will use the stoichiometric
ratio from the balanced reaction to find the limiting reagent.

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 Step 1: Convert amounts (grams) to moles.
We can convert the masses of Al and Cl2 to moles using molecular

weights:

(Convert g Al to mol Al)

(Convert g Cl2to mol Cl2)

Step 2: Find the limiting reagent using the stoichiometric ratio.

Now that our known quantities are in moles, there are multiple ways to
find the limiting reagent. We will show three methods here. They all
give the same answer, so you can choose your favorite. All three methods use the
stoichiometric ratio in slightly different ways.

METHOD 1: The first method is to calculate the actual molar ratio of the reactants, and
then compare the actual ratio to the stoichiometric ratio from the balanced reaction.

This means we need at least 0.67 moles of Al for every mole of Cl2. Since our actual ratio
is greater than our stoichiometric ratio, we have more Al than we need to react with
each mole of Cl2. Therefore, Cl2is our limiting reagent and Al is in excess.

METHOD 2: A more guess-and-check way you can figure out the limiting
reactant is by picking one of the reactants—it doesn’t matter which
one—and pretending that it is the limiting reagent. We can then calculate
the moles of the other reagent needed based on the moles of
our pretend limiting reagent. For example, if we pretend that Al is the limiting
reagent, we would calculate the required amount of Cl2 as follows:

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 METHOD 3: The third method uses the concept of a mole of reaction, which
is abbreviated as mol-rxn. One mole of reaction is defined as occurring when
the number of moles given by the coefficients in your balanced equation
react. That definition can sound rather confusing, but
the idea is hopefully more clear in the context of our example. In the current reaction,
we would say that one mole of reaction is when two moles of Al react with three moles
Cl2 to produce two moles AlCl3 which we can also write as:

1mol-rxn=2mol Al=3mol Cl2=2mol AlCl3

We can use the above relationship to set up ratios to convert the moles of each reactant
to moles of reaction:

The more moles of reaction you have, the more times the reaction can occur.
Therefore, the reactant with fewer moles of reaction is the limiting reagent since the
reaction can be carried out fewer times with that reactant. We see that this method
also Cl2 is our limiting reagent because it makes 2.00×10−2mol-rxn, which is less
than 5.20×10−2mol-rxn, from Al.

Example 2: Calculating theoretical yield

Now that we know the limiting reagent, we can use that information to
answer the following question:

What is the theoretical yield of AlCl 3 that the reaction can produce when we
start with 4.25 g of Cl2, our limiting reagent?
We can use the moles of limiting reagent plus the stoichiometric ratios from our
balanced reaction to calculate the theoretical yield. The coefficients from the

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balanced reaction tell us that for every three mol of Cl2we should make two mol of AlCl3.
Therefore, the theoretical yield, in moles, is:

The theoretical yield is usually expected to have units of mass, so we can convert moles
of AlCl3to grams using the molecular weight:

Percent Yield
The theoretical yield is the maximum amount of product you would expect
from a reaction based on the amount of limiting reagent. In
practice, however, chemists don’t always obtain the maximum yield for many
reasons. When running a reaction in the lab, loss of product often occurs during
purification or isolation steps. You might even decide it is worth losing 10% of your
product during an extra purification step because it is more important to have
extremely pure product—as opposed to having a larger amount of less pure

Oh no, a cat-burglar stole a hot dog

bun! That makes the actual yield
three complete hot dogs. If our
theoretical yield was four complete
hot dogs, what is our percent yield?

Source:
https://www.khanacademy.org/s
cience/chemistry/chemical-
reactions-stoichiome/limiting-
reagent-stoichiometry/a/limiting-
reagents-and-percent-yield

Since chemists know that the actual yield might be less than the theoretical yield, we
report the actual yield using percent yield, which tells us what percentage of the
theoretical yield we obtained. This ratio can be very valuable to other people who

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might try your reaction. The percent yield is determined using the following equation:

Since percent yield is a percentage, you would normally expect to have a percent
yield between zero and 100. If your percent yield is greater than 100, that probably
means you calculated or measured something incorrectly.

Example 3. Calculating theoretical and percent yield

For example, the decomposition of magnesium carbonate (MgCO 3) forms 15 grams of

magnesium oxide (MgO) in an experiment. The theoretical yield is known to be 19
grams. What is the percent yield of magnesium oxide (MgO)?
MgCO3 MgO CO2
Mg =1x24.31 g/mol Mg =1x24.31 g/mol C = 1x12.01 g/mol
C = 1x12.01 g/mol O=1x16.00 g/mol O=2x16.00 g/mol
O=3x16.00 g/mol
MgCO3=84.32 g/mol MgO = 40.31 g/mol CO2=44.01 g/mol
MgCO3 → MgO + CO2

What is the percent yield of the reaction?

First, we check to see if the reaction is balanced. It looks like we have equal numbers
of all atoms on both sides, so now we can move on to calculating the theoretical yield.

The calculation is simple if you know the actual and theoretical yields. All you need
is substitute the values into the formula:
percent yield = 15 g / 19 g x 100%

percent yield = 79%

Usually, you have to calculate the theoretical yield based on the balanced equation. In
this equation, the reactant and the product have a 1:1 mole ratio, so if you know the
amount of reactant, you know the theoretical yield is the same value in moles (not
grams!). You take the number of grams of reactant you have, convert it to moles, and
then use this number of moles to find out how many grams of productto expect.

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 What’s More

Activity 1. Limiting Reactants Calculation

Directions: Answer the following questions below. Use three significant figures in
your computation and final answer.
1. Consider the following reaction:
2𝐴𝑙 + 6𝐻𝑏𝑟 → 2 𝐴𝑙𝐵𝑟3 + 3𝐻2
a. When 3.22 moles of Al react with 4.96 moles of HBr, how many moles
of H2 are formed?
b. What is the limiting reactant?

2. Consider the following reaction:

3𝑆𝑖 + 2𝑁2 → 𝑆𝑖3𝑁4
a. When 21.44 moles of Si react with 17.62 moles of N2, how many
moles of 𝑆𝑖3𝑁4 are formed?
b. What is the limiting reactant?

What I Have Learned

Directions: Read the statement below carefully and fill in the blank(s) with
the correct answer.

1. The is the reactant that gets used up first during the

reaction and also determines how much product can be made.
2. is a section of chemistry that involves using relationships
between reactants and/or products in a chemical reaction to determine
desired quantitative data.
3. is a reactant that is not used up when the reaction is
finished.
4. is a reagent that is completely used up or reacted.

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 What I Can Do

Activity 2: Limiting Reactants Activity

Do the activity below using your knowledge about limiting reactant.

Question No. 1
a. How many Guava Jelly (GuJe) can be formed using 5 Guava and 23 Jelly?
b. What is the limiting reactant?
c. What is the excess reactant?
d. How much is left over?
e. Use the balanced equation to answer the following question. One Guava has
a mass of 2.0 grams and one Jelly has a mass of 1.5 g. How many Guava
Jelly can be made with 12.5 grams of Guava and 15.0 grams of Jelly?

Question No. 2
a. How many Hot Pansit can be formed using 10 Pansit and 24 Siling Labuyo?
b. What is the limiting reactant?
c. What is the excess reactant?
d. How much is left over?
e. Use the balanced equation to answer the following question. One Pansit has
a mass of 5.0 grams and one Siling Labuyo has a mass of 1.0 gram. How many
Hot Pansit can be made from 40.0 grams of Pansit and 26.0 grams of Siling
Labuyo?

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 Assessment

Directions: Answer the following questions below on a separate sheet of paper.

1. It is the reactant that produces a lesser amount of product.

a. Excess Reactant c. Limiting Reactant
b. Percent Yield d. Co-Factor

2. What is the calculation of the relationship of reactant and product in

chemical equation.
a. Molality c. Balancing Equation
b. Stoichiometry d. Percent Yield

3. It is the maximum amount of product you would expect from a reaction

based on the amount of limiting reagent
a. Theoretical yield c. Excess Reactant
b. Limiting Reactant d. Product Difference

4. They are the reactants that are not used up when the reaction is finished.
a. Excess Reagents b. Limiting Reagents
b. Solute d. Solution

5. It deals with the process that involves rearrangement of the molecular or

ionic structure of a substance to form a new substance or product.
a. Chemical Equilibrium c. Chemical Symbols
b. Chemical Reaction d. Stoichiometry

6. What is the expected value for percent yield?

a. -1 b. 0-100 c. above 100 d. Unknown

7. Which of the following equation below is balanced?

a. Al+3O2→2Al2O3
b. 4Al+O2→2Al2O3
c. 4Al+3O2→Al2O3
d. 4Al+3O2→2Al2O3

8. In the equation Mg+HCl→MgCl2+H2, how many molecules of hydrogen do we

need to make hydrogen balanced?
a. 3 b. 6 c. 2 d. 7
9. What is the proper sequence of a chemical equation?
10. Will 28.7 grams of SiO2 react completely with 22.6 grams of H2F2? If not,
identify the limiting reagent. SiO2+2H2F2→SiF4+2H2O
𝑆𝑖𝑂2 + 2𝐻2𝐹2 → 𝑆𝑖𝐹4 + 2𝐻2𝑂
Si=20.09 g/mole O= 16.00 g/mole

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 H= 1.01 g/mole F= 19.00 g/mole

11. What is the limiting reactant in the equation in number 9?

12. What is the excess reactant in the equation in number 10?
13. How many moles of chlorine gas can be produced if 4 moles of FeCl3
react with 4 moles of O2?
𝐹𝑒𝐶𝑙3 + 𝑂2 → 𝐹𝑒2𝑂3 + 𝐶𝑙2
14. What is the limiting reactant in the equation in number 13?
15. What is the excess reactant in the equation in number 13?