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Chemical Reactions
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Limiting reactants
Explanation Page

QUESTION

Gaseous methane CH4 will react with gaseous oxygen O2 to produce gaseous carbon dioxide CO2 and g

water H2 O . Suppose 0.48 g of methane is mixed with 1.21 g of oxygen. Calculate the maximum mass of car

dioxide that could be produced by the chemical reaction. Round your answer to 3 significant digits.

EXPLANATION

The question is a limiting reactant problem. You can tell it's a limiting reactant problem by the fact that you we
the initial amounts of more than one reactant. Here is the balanced chemical equation for the reaction you will
solve the problem:

CH4 g + 2 O2 g → CO2 g + 2 H2 O g

You can solve limiting reactant problems in the following three steps:

Step 1 : Find the initial moles of each reactant.

Use the molar mass of each compound to convert mass to moles:

reactant initial mass initial moles

0.48 g
CH4 0.48 g −1
= 0.02992… mol
16.0410 g·mol
1.21 g
O2 1.21 g −1
= 0.037814… mol
31.9988 g·mol

There are 2 significant digits in the mass of CH4 and 3 significant digits in the mass of O2, so your calcul
values for the initial moles have 2 and 3 significant digits, respectively. But keep two extra digits for now,
only round your final answer to the correct number of significant digits.

Step 2 : Determine the limiting reactant.

The limiting reactant is the one that gets used up first. The most reliable way to find it is to consider each
reactant in turn, and imagine what would happen if that reactant were completely used up by the reactio
Only when you pick the actual limiting reactant will your results be sensible.
More...

Let's begin by imagining what would happen if the methane were used up. The moles of O2 that would be
consumed would equal the moles of CH4 consumed multiplied by the ratio of their stoichiometric coefficie

2 mol O2 consumed
0.02992 mol CH4 consumed × = 0.05984… mol O2 consumed
1 mol CH4 consumed

This would be the final situation:

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reactant initial moles moles consumed final moles

CH4 0.02992 mol 0.02992 mol 0 mol

O2 0.037814 mol 0.05984 mol 0.037814 mol − 0.05984 mol = − 0.02203 mol?

Clearly this is impossible! The reaction couldn't use up 0.05984 mol of oxygen when there are only
0.037814 mol to start with. It must be that the reaction would run out of oxygen before all the methane
used up.

Just to be certain, however, let's imagine what would happen if all the oxygen were used up. The moles o

that would be consumed would equal the moles of O2 consumed multiplied by the ratio of their stoichiom
coefficients:

1 mol CH4 consumed

0.037814 mol O2 consumed × = 0.018907… mol CH4 consumed
2 mol O2 consumed

This would be the final situation:

reactant initial moles moles consumed final moles

CH4 0.02992 mol 0.018907 mol 0.02992 mol − 0.018907 mol = 0.01101 … mol
O2 0.037814 mol 0.037814 mol 0 mol

This result is indeed possible. That is, there's enough methane to use up all the oxygen.

⇒The limiting reagent is oxygen.

Step 3 : Find the final moles of each reactant.

Use the fact that oxygen is the limiting reagent:

reactant initial moles moles used up final moles

CH4 0.02992 mol 0.018907 mol 0.01101 … mol

O2 0.037814 mol 0.037814 mol 0 mol

Step 4 : Answer the question.

You're asked for the maximum mass of carbon dioxide that could be produced, i.e. the mass of carbon dio
when the limiting reagent is used up.

First, calculate the number of moles of CO2 produced from the number of moles of O2 consumed:

1 mol CO2 produced

0.037814 mol O2 consumed × = 0.018907… mol CO2 produced
2 mol O2 consumed

Next, convert moles to mass using the molar mass of carbon dioxide:

−1
0.018907 mol × 44.0084 g·mol = 0.83207… g
Since the moles of carbon dioxide produced has 3 significant digits, so should your answer.

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ANSWER

Maximum mass of carbon dioxide produced: 0.832 g

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