Reaction Stoichiometry: Concept

Reaction Stoichiometry is used to find out how much of something is produced or consumed in a chemical reaction. Prerequisites: Balancing Equations and Ratios. Lots of students get confused with how to do these problems because elements and formulae...I do agree they're concepts that are hard to wrap your head around.

Chemical equations are pretty much like a recipe for chemists. Take a look at this:

2 Buns + 1 Patty -> 1 Burger If you look at this, the ratio is 2:1:1.

Which means if you have 2 buns and 1 patty, a burger could be made. Simple, right? Now what if we have 60 patties and lots of buns? Well since we don't need to care about buns running out (it's called an excess in chemistry), we could just find out he equivalent ratio. This is very intuitive, but I'm just writing it out to help those who are struggling a bit. 2 Buns + 1 Patties-> 1 Burger

? Buns + 60 Patties -> ? Burger

If you remember about multiplying by the same factors, then you will understand what I mean here, but I think it is pretty intuitive here, just multiply everything by 60. So as we can see, 120 Buns + 60 Patties -> 60 Burgers (-> mean "will give us"; in Chemistry we don't use the = sign) What if we had 36 Buns and loads of Patties instead? Just find the factor: (Given quantity are the ones you are given or figure out from the question, while the "base" quantities are like those in the recipe, or the Stoichiometric Coefficients in a balanced chemical equation.) Given Quantity/Base Quantity = 36/2 = 18 So the factor we multiply by to get our new recipe would be 18. 2*18:1*18:1*18 36 Buns + 18 Patties -> 18 Buns So 36 Buns can give us 18 Buns if we have enough Patties. And that's how a chef or chemist can figure out how much of something he can get!