What is a limiting reactant problem?

Answer 1

Well, usually all combustion reactions are such...

A #16*g# mass of methane is combusted in air....

#CH_4(g) +2O_2(g) rarr CO_2(g) +2H_2O(l) + Delta#

Clearly, the reagent in EXCESS is dioxygen, and the hydrocarbon, methane, is in stoichiometric deficiency. Taking that atmosphere into consideration, how much carbon dioxide is produced from the given reaction?

Note that sometimes, especially for long-chain hydrocarbons, such as diesels, INCOMPLETE combustion can occur to give carbon and carbon monoxide as the products of incomplete combustion. We could represent this by saying that SOME #CO# and #C# result from a diesel combustion reaction, i.e.

#C_10H_20+27/2O_2 rarr 8CO_2(g) + CO(g) + C(s) + 10H_2O#

Is this balanced? It seems obvious that in order to accurately depict the reaction, we would need to examine the combustion products.

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Answer 2

Axel Alvarado

A limiting reactant problem involves identifying which reactant in a chemical reaction will be completely consumed first, thereby limiting the amount of product that can be formed.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.