How To Find The Limiting Reactant In A Chemical Reaction?

The limiting reagent (or reactant) in a reaction is found by calculating the amount of product produced by each reactant. The reactant that produces the least amount of product is the limiting reactant.

There are many things that need to go right for a chemical reaction to yield useful products: from the environment surrounding the reaction to the amount of the reactants present. Only once in a blue moon do all the reactants get converted into products.

In most reactions, one reagent (reagent and reactant are used interchangeably) is entirely depleted, while some quantity of the other reagents stays available for further reaction.

Since one of the reactants is not always available, the reaction hits a roadblock and does not continue. This reactant that gets completely used up, and thus limits the reaction from advancing forward, is called the limiting reactant or limiting reagent.

Limiting Reagent
The limiting reagent in a chemical reaction controls how much of the final product will be produced.

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