In: Chemistry
1. Explain the reason why reactants do not produce the same amount of product, why does one reactant limit the reaction and the other reactant is in excess?
2. How do the coefficients of the reaction relate to the amounts of reactants used?
Ans 1 :
Each chemical reaction requires fixed number of reactants that collide together to form the product . The amount of individual reactants need not to be same , but must be sufficient to produce the desired product .
Manier times , the reactions are carried out when the reactants are not present in the amounts that are required by the balanced chemical reaction .
In these cases , one reactant that is present in the lesser amount gets consumed first , and after that no further reaction takes place , though the other reactant is present in excess .
The reactant that gets consumed , and limits the amount of product formed in the reaction is called as limiting reagent , and other reactant that is left over is called as excess reagent .