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7 Stoichiometry Examples in Real Life

Stoichiometry is one of the most important concepts in chemistry.

The term comes from two Greek roots, “stoicheion,” which means
element, and “metron,” which means measure. Just like a chef
measures the ingredients before preparing a dish, stoichiometry is
the science of measuring quantities or mass ratios of chemical
elements in a given chemical reaction. Food preparation is an
appropriate analogy to understand stoichiometry. For instance, a
recipe for making eight pancakes requires a cup of pancake mix,
some milk, and an egg. The “equation” representing the preparation
of eight pancakes is

1 cup mix + 34 cup milk + 1 egg → 8 pancakes

If two dozen pancakes are needed for a big family breakfast, the
ingredient amounts must be increased proportionally according to
the amounts given in the recipe. For example, the number of eggs
required to make 24 pancakes is

1egg
24 Pancakes × 8pancakes = 3 eggs

Balanced chemical equations are used in the same fashion to

determine the amount of one reactant required to react with a given
amount of another reactant, or to yield a given amount of product,
and so forth. A balanced chemical equation is a concise format to
express any chemical reaction. While chemical formulae provide
the identities of the reactants and products involved in the chemical
change, coefficients represent the relative numbers of these
chemical species, allowing a quantitative assessment of the
relationships between the amounts of reactants and products in a
chemical reaction. These quantitative relationships are known as
stoichiometry. In general, it is the study of the quantities of
reactants and products in a chemical reaction. The basic law that
governs the stoichiometry of a given chemical reaction is the Law
of conservation of mass. Since chemical reactions can neither
create nor destroy matter, and it’s not possible to transform one
element into another, the amount of each element must be the
same throughout the overall reaction. This physical law is what
makes all stoichiometric calculations possible. The general
stoichiometric equation for any chemical reaction is written as:

aA + bB + … → … + yY+ zZ

It provides the information that a moles of A reacts with b moles of

B to produce y moles of Y and z moles of Z. These coefficients in the
equation are used to derive stoichiometric factors that permits the
computations for the desired quantity. Though the stoichiometric
coefficients can be fractions, whole numbers are frequently used
and often preferred. Although it may not seem important,
stoichiometry is the heart of the solutions to many real-life
problems. Let’s take a look at few examples of how stoichiometry is
being employed in practical life.

Index of Article (Click to Jump)

1. Airbags Design
2. Rocket Propulsion
3. Lithium Hydroxide Scrubber
4. Pharmaceutical Industry
5. Role in Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs)
6. Green Chemistry
7. Ecological Stoichiometry

1. Airbags Design

An airbag is a safety feature inside a vehicle that would reduce the

impact of the collision on drivers and passengers in an accident.
Today, airbags are mandatory in new cars to act as a supplemental
safety device in addition to a seat belt. Timing is a crucial factor in
the airbag’s ability to save lives in a head-on collision. The effective
operation of an airbag requires it to rapidly inflate with an
appropriate amount (volume) of gas and within milliseconds from
the initial collision impact. One of the simplest designs for a crash
sensor includes a steel ball that slides inside a smooth bore. The
ball is held in place by a permanent magnet or by a stiff spring,
which inhibits the ball’s motion when the vehicle drives over bumps
or potholes. However, when the car decelerates very quickly, as in a
head-on collision, the ball suddenly moves forward and turns on an
electrical circuit, initiating the process of inflating the airbag.
During the collision, the electric circuit passes an electrical current
through a carefully measured amount of sodium azide N aN 3 to
initiate its decomposition:

N aN 3 (s) → 3 N 2 (g) + 2 N a (s)

The reaction generates gaseous nitrogen that can deploy and fully
inflate a typical airbag in a fraction of a second (0.03–0.1 s). Among
many other engineering specifications, the amount of sodium azide
used must be appropriate for a reaction being that rapid. This is
done with the help of using stoichiometry to estimate the amount of
solid sodium azide. Moreover, it is also necessary that the body or
head of the driver (or passenger) should not hit the airbag while it
is still inflating, as the high internal pressure of the airbag would
create a surface as hard as stone. For the airbag to cushion the head
and torso with air for maximum protection, the airbag must begin
to deflate (i.e., decrease its internal pressure) by the time the body
hits it. When the release of gaseous nitrogen is stopped, gas
molecules escape the bag through vents. This causes the pressures
inside the bag to decrease gradually to the atmospheric pressure
within 2 seconds, making it a soft cushion. 

2. Rocket Propulsion

Space exploration is one of the biggest achievements of mankind

and it has been made possible by overcoming several challenges.
When we think about sending a spacecraft to another planet or into
space, we ask questions like “How can we get it off the ground?”
Choosing an efficient fuel proportion for lifting off something as
heavy as a rocket may sound impossible at first thought, but it
becomes possible with the help of stoichiometry. Unlike jet engines,
which only contain fuel and have atmospheric oxygen at their
disposal for oxidation, the main engines of many rockets are
primarily powered by an exothermic reaction of hydrogen and
oxygen. Igniting the mixture initiates a vigorous chemical reaction
that rapidly generates large amounts of gaseous products. These
gases are ejected from the rocket engine through its nozzle,
providing the thrust needed to propel heavy payloads into space. It
is very important to carefully set the proportions of fuel in the
rocket because fuel tanks make up most of the rocket’s weight, and
the ratio has to be exactly right for maximum propulsion with
minimum mass. If the rocket has too much of one or the other
reactant on board, the other one would be left unconsumed.

3. Lithium Hydroxide Scrubber

We have already discussed the role of stoichiometry in dealing with

the most basic challenge in space exploration in the previous
example. Let’s understand how stoichiometry provides an earth-
like atmosphere within a space shuttle where astronauts can move
around and breathe without a spacesuit. While it was easy to
provide a constant stream of oxygen from fuel tanks within the
rocket, the extraction of carbon dioxide exhaled by the crew was
one of the many unprecedented problems that came up when
humans decided to go into space. The human body can survive
perfectly well even in 15-17% of oxygen concentrations in the air.
Anything less than this threshold can cause serious problems in
space exploration and may jeopardize the whole program. To
achieve this threshold limit, space shuttles generally use an
absorption method to remove carbon dioxide (CO2).  It is
accomplished by a chemical reaction in which lithium hydroxide
(LiOH) goes under an exothermic reaction with carbon dioxide gas
to create lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) solid and water (H2O).

LiOH + CO2 → Li2 O3 + H 2 O

Because of its excellent absorption capacity for carbon dioxide and
the tiny amount of heat created in the reaction, lithium hydroxide is
an essential choice of chemical for space flight. Nonetheless, this
reaction is irreversible and requires the periodic replacement of
storage canisters. The stoichiometric calculations offer the
information needed to guarantee that these canisters are replaced
on a regular basis.

4. Pharmaceutical Industry

The pharmaceutical industry encompasses a wide range of

chemistry with stoichiometry at the center of it. The concept of
stoichiometrical calculations is important in this industry as the
quantities of compounds must be exact to create the right amount
of medication. Pharmacists use various measurement quantities
such as milligrams to define the mass of active ingredients in a
given medicine. Depending on the medical condition of the patient,
doctors prescribe the dosage of certain milligrams in their
prescription form. An error in measuring the active ingredient of a
particular drug can drastically change the potency of a drug, even
turning a medication into poison. Such errors lead to drug recall
from the market and can cost millions of dollars to the
manufacturing companies. Stoichiometric calculations prevent such
errors by accurately estimating the amounts of reactants required
to produce desirable active ingredients of a particular drug. It is
also important to take a medication dosage as per the doctor’s
prescription as an intake of more milligrams of the active
ingredient may also lead to acute or chronic overdose.

5. Role in Fast-moving
consumer goods (FMCGs)

Several products that we use in our daily life, such as soaps,

perfumes, toothpaste, etc., are prepared by some chemical reactions
performed in the industries. From the scientist who forms the basic
chemical equation for the product to the chemical engineer who is
synthesizing that product on a large scale, stoichiometry plays an
equally important part. The chemists, who develop the synthetic
route of any product, calculate excess moles of each reagent used
and moles formed of the desired product. They try several
proportions of reactants to get an efficient yield. The report from
the lab scientist is then shared with chemists, who try to replicate
the idea on a larger scale at the pilot plant of the industries. Even
there also, some stoichiometric changes are made to meet the
consumer’s requirements and give the product its unique brand
identity. In any industry, the cost is a factor that affects the market
and for that, the process is required to be economical.
Stochiometric calculations provide the most economically efficient
method of designing and developing a certain product.

6. Green Chemistry

Green chemistry is another name given to sustainable chemistry. It

is an area that primarily focuses on the purposeful design of
chemical products and processes that minimize the use of
environmentally hazardous substances and the generation of waste.
One of the twelve principles of green chemistry is aimed specifically
at maximizing the efficiency of processes for synthesizing chemical
products. The concept of stoichiometry plays a great role in
synthesizing the final product that contains the maximum
proportion of the starting materials. In general terms, this process
is known as maximizing the atom economy. It is a measure of
efficiency and defined as the percentage by mass of the final
product of a synthesis relative to the masses of all the reactants
used:

massof product
atom economy = massof reactants × 100%

Though the definition of atom economy at first glance appears very

similar to that for percent yield, be aware that this property
represents a difference in the theoretical efficiencies of different
chemical processes. The percent yield of a given chemical process,
on the other hand, evaluates the efficiency of a process by
comparing the yield of the product actually obtained to the
maximum yield predicted by stoichiometry. The synthesis of the
common nonprescription pain medication, ibuprofen,
appropriately illustrates the success of a green chemistry approach.

7. Ecological Stoichiometry

Bags used to manipulate food elemental stoichiometry and

determine the effects on zooplankton communities

Ecological stoichiometry is the study that discovers how the

chemical content of an organism shapes its ecology. Similar to
chemical stoichiometry, the principles of ecological stoichiometry
are also based on mass balance limitations as they apply to species
and their interactions in ecosystems. The study primarily focuses
on the interface between an organism and its resources. The
community composition for any organism is often determined by
the biotic factors of its ecosystem. For instance, in aquatic systems,
the stoichiometry of accessible nutrients, such as nitrogen and
phosphorus, is used to forecast phytoplankton species composition
in aquatic environments. If a particular organism species can
maintain the community composition despite the changes in
chemical composition and the availability of resources, it is referred
to as stoichiometric homeostasis. It is an important factor to predict
the strategies used by the species to cope up with limited resources.

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2 COMMENTS

Harmony

Several products that we use in our daily life, such as

soaps, perfumes, toothpaste, prepared by some chemical
reactions performed in the industries.
Reply

Harmony

The community composition for any organism is often

determined by the biotic factors of its ecosystem
Reply

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