A mixture of 132.3 g of Cl 2 and 28.9 g of P reacts completely to form PCl 3 and PCl 5 . Find the mass of PCl 5 produced

Answer 1

The balanced equation is 4Cl2 + 2P --> PCl3 + PCl5. Dividing each of the reactants by their molecular mass I find 1.866 moles of Cl2 and 0.9332 moles of P. Dividing 1.866 by 0.9332 I have 2 Cl2's for each 1 P the same ratio as in the balanced equation so no reactant is limiting. By using the ratios in the balanced equation I have 0.4665 moles of each PCl3 and PCl5. Multipling each of these by their mass: becomes 64.1 g of PCl3 and 97.1 g of PCl5. Adding together the mass on each side of the equation I find 161.2 g on each; showing conservation of mass and a check of the calculations.