In this series of videos, we're going to still talk about stoichiometry, but now we're going to introduce the idea of the limiting reagent. Now the limiting reagent, sometimes called the limiting reactant. It's the reactant that is completely consumed in a reaction and determines the maximum amount of product.
Now we start talking about limiting react in a reagent when more than one reactant and our chemical equation is given a starting amount. Now we're going to say here that the limiting reagent helps us to determine the theoretical yield. This is the maximum amount of product that can form from a chemical reaction. It's also referred to as the 100% yield or the maximum yield.
Now different from the limiting reagent is the excess reagent. Now this is the reactant that remains after the completion of the chemical reaction. So you have a reactant and acts as a limiting reagent, and then you can have another reactant acting as the excess reagent.
Now, in order to determine which reactant is which, you must work out the amounts of products each can make, and from there we'll have enough information to tell which is which. Now that we've gotten out the definitions, click on the next video and see how these stoichiometric charts changes slightly when dealing with limiting reagents and excess reagents.
