Question #98c48
1 Answer
NaNO2 is the limiting reagent because 100 grams of H2SO4 is completely consumed in the reaction.
You first need to convert your grams of reactant to moles using the molar mass.
Example: 100 g H2SO4 / 98.07 g/mol = 1.01966 mol H2SO4
There are multiple ways to solve the problem from here, but I'll go with the simplest.
Basically a reagent is limiting when it "runs out" before the other reagents, thereby "limiting" the reaction from progressing. A simple way to solve this is to determine how much product (just pick one) can be produced using each reactant. Whichever one produces the least is going to be the limiting reactant. You may use the mole ratio (coefficients in balanced equation) to do this.
Example:
(1.01966 mol H2SO4) * (2 mol HNO2/1 mol H2SO4) = 2.04 mol HNO2
(1.73926 mol NaNO2) * (2 mol HNO2/2 mole NaNO2) = 1.74 mol HNO2
Since NaNO2 produces less product, it is the limiting reagent.
Here's a video that may be helpful as well:
