If you start with 45g of P4O10 and 50g of H20 what will be your limiting reagent?

The limiting reagent is _.

The limiting reagent is P4O10

Explanation:

To find the limiting reagent you must convert the amount of grams of the substance you have into moles and then, using the stoichiometric coefficients convert the moles of each substance to the moles of your product. Which ever substance can produce the smallest amount of product is then the limiting reactant.

Here's the process below:

First we need to multiply by the inverse of the molar mass of each of the compounds.

= 0.158512 mol P4O10

= 2.776 mol H2O

Now we have to convert these mole amounts into the molar amounts of the products. So lets use the coefficients in our balanced equation.

= 0.634 mol H3PO4

= 1.850 mol H3PO4

So clearly the water will "produce" more product by our calculation. So the limiting reactant here is P4O10.

The answer to your question is P₄O₁₀

Explanation:

1.- Balanced chemical reaction

            P₄O₁₀  +  6H₂O   ⇒  4H₃PO₄

       Reactants    Elements      Products

              4                  P                    P

             12                  H                    12

             16                  O                    16

2.- Calculate the limiting reactant

- Molar mass of P₄O₁₀ = (31 x 4) + (16 x 10) = 284 g

-Molar mass of H₂O = 6[(1 x 2) + (16 x 1)] = 108

Theoretical proportion P₄O₁₀ / H₂O = 284 / 108 = 2.62

Experimental proportion P₄O₁₀/ H₂O = 45/50 = 0.9

Conclusion

As the experimental proportion diminishes, we can conclude that the limiting reactant is P₄O₁₀.