34 gram ch4 reacting with 80 gram or two to form CO2 and H2O find limiting reagent number of moles of Co2 and H2O
Answers
Answer:
We must start by creating a balanced reaction between Methane and Oxygen. As methane is a hydrocarbon reacting with oxygen this will be a combustion reaction resulting in carbon dioxide and water.
The combustion reaction is:
C
H
4
+
2
O
2
→
C
O
2
+
2
H
2
O
Now we want to find how many moles of each reactant we have to find which one is limiting.
If we do a rough calculation for finding how many moles of
C
H
4
and how many moles of
O
2
we have we get the following:
Using the molarity equation:
n
=
m
M
M=molar mass of the compound/element,
m=mass in grams of the compound/element
n=number of moles of the compound/element
n(Oxygen)=
32
32
=
1
mol
n(methane)=
(
32
16
)
=
2
mol
However, in the reaction equation, we need 2 moles of oxygen for every one mole of Methane, and we only have 1 mole of oxygen and 2 moles of Methane. That means methane is in excess and oxygen is thus our limiting reactant.
So in this reaction we would only be able to react 1 mol of
O
2
with 0.5 mol of
C
H
4
.