Question

What is a limiting agent? Explain​

Answer 1

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Limiting reagent : The reactant in a chemical reaction that limits the amount of product that can be formed is called the limiting agent. The reaction will stop when all of the limiting reactant is consumed.

A balanced chemical equation gives the ideal stoichiometric relationship among reactants and products. However, when a chemist carries out a reaction, reactants for the experiment are not necessarily present in exact stoichiometric amounts. This is because, the goal of the reaction is to produce the maximum quantity of a useful compound or product from the starting material. Many a times, a large excess of one reactant is supplied to ensure that the more expensive reactant is completely converted into the desired product. Thus, the reactant which is present in lesser amounts gets consumed after some time and subsequently, no further reaction takes place.

Answer 2

Explanation:

In a chemical reaction, the limiting reagent is the reactant that determines how much of the products are made. The other reactants are sometimes referred to as being in excess, since there will be some leftover after the limiting reagent is completely used up.

Example -

For the following reaction, what is the limiting reagent if we start with 2.80g of Al an 4.25g of Cl2?

2Al + 3Cl2 →. 2AlCl3

First, let’s check if our reaction is balanced : we have 2 Al atoms and 6 Cl atoms on both sides of the arrow. In this problem, we know the mass of 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.